Army Fatigues
by TrinityWildcat
Summary: An investigation into a suspected Eastern European terrorist takes Bobby Goren out of New York City and on a surveillance mission with Interpol and the CIA. Now completed.
1. Prologue: Fatigued Already

**Disclaimer**:I don't own the character of Bobby Goren or any of the other characters or plot devices of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. All others are entirely my responsibility/fault.

**Very Important Disclaimer**: Everything in here is fiction, and I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the US Army, Interpol, the CIA, the British intelligence services or the NYPD. I've done my best to avoid glaring plotholes, but please don't contact me asking for more details about Army installations in New York State, CIA listening devices or the admissibility in court of evidence gained by covert surveillance, because you will receive the author's standard disclaimer: "I Made It All Up".

Standing in front of the mirror in the women's washroom nearest the road out from the Army barracks on the Connecticut coastline, I re-adjusted the army fatigues I'd donned hastily three hours earlier and sighed. I was trying to pass myself off as an Army recruit but, truth be told, I looked like Combat Barbie. If Barbie had bright red hair, freckles, and a figure that wasn't so much 'supermodel' as 'twenty-minute hourglass'. (One of these days I will learn that donuts are not my friends). Oh well. Bite the bullet time. I wandered out to join the rest of the surveillance team, and saw to my surprise that most of them had already gone. Two familiar tall figures in Army fatigues were leaning on the hood of the Jeep, deep in conversation. I scuttled across, hoping that I hadn't made the situation I was in even worse by being late. They both looked up.

"I see the others have already gone?"

"Yes," Detective Bobby Goren, NYPD, shrugged. He looked surprisingly at home in the fatigues; I was already wondering how the Army managed to get anything done if they had to wear them in this heat. "Your boss said they'll meet us up there; they need to get there earlier than us to set up the equipment anyway."

_Thank you, Tim_, I thought. I understood why my temporary boss, Tim Whitefield (Interpol Criminal Intelligence Division) had decided that the three of us – myself, Goren, and Andrew Davenport, our Liaison Officer with the British intelligence services, should share the ride up to the old building we were going to be using for the surveillance operation. We were supposed to be working together to interpret whatever information the two CIA agents who'd set off with him earlier to set up their equipment managed to gather for us. It wasn't Whitefield's fault that I'd made myself look a complete idiot in front of Goren earlier that day. At least he didn't know the details.

"Who's driving?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not." Andrew Davenport, Liaison Officer for the British intelligence services, grinned ruefully. "I'm still on British Summer Time, and I haven't slept properly since the flight over. If I drive we'll end up going off the road." He threw the canvas bag he was carrying into the backseat and climbed in after it, stretching his legs across the back seat and propping his head against the door, using his fatigues jacket as a pillow.

That left myself or Goren. I decided to be decisive, on the grounds that he must already think I was an unprofessional idiot and I should probably be trying not to make the situation worse. "You mind if I drive?"

He shrugged. Was I kidding myself to think he looked relieved? "By all means. You want me to put your bag in the trunk?"

"Thanks." I handed it to him, hopped into the driver's seat and started fiddling with the seat and the mirrors. It was a stick shift, which I was actually quite pleased about; it's good to practise driving stick now and then, or you forget how to do it. I leaned out of the window as Goren climbed into the passenger seat beside me, immediately reaching underneath it and fiddling with the lever to push it back as far as it would go. The Army mechanic who'd checked over the Jeeps prior to our borrowing them for the operation was cleaning his sunglasses with a grimy-looking rag. I addressed him directly.

"How do we get there?" I'd seen the map and knew it was basically a case of 'head up the coastline along the road until you see it', but it never hurts to ask someone who knows the area.

He waved an arm at the neglected-looking road that led out of the base in front of us. "Just head on out, keep going til you run into it, and watch out for potholes."

"Thanks." I donned my sunglasses; Goren was already wearing his. From behind us came a faint snore. I put the Jeep in gear and rolled it forwards. Behind us, the mechanic shut the gates and I heard the rattle of chains and a padlock. It was a nice day for the drive; warm and sunny, clear skies, still air. I took the Jeep up to what I thought would be a safe cruising speed, and glanced across at Goren. He was lolling in the passenger seat, looking bored already. I sympathised, but couldn't help thinking of the drive ahead with a wince. Three hours stuck in a Jeep with the guy who was indirectly responsible for my being here, on the most important intelligence operation I'd ever been involved with, and he was probably wondering why they'd ever let me out of the office. He began fiddling with the radio. "You mind if I see if I can get anything… maybe some music or something?"

"Knock yourself out." I fixed my eyes on the road, ignoring the squawks from the radio, and reviewed the events to date that had put me, Sienna Tovitz, Interpol Translation & Interpretation Services (Russian & Eastern European Division) in a borrowed Army jeep with a British intelligence officer and a New York City detective, heading out up the East Coast to spy on the head of an Eastern European criminal gang – a suspected terrorist - with one of Interpol's senior Criminal Intelligence department heads and two CIA surveillance technicians. Doing so was a bit like prodding a sore tooth – you know you shouldn't, but you can't help it. My mind drifted back to the meeting immediately prior to us heading on out of here, with a mental wince.

It had been the most important meeting of my life to date. I probably shouldn't have been trying to remember the German for 'testosterone'.


	2. Chapter 1: Under Surveillance

As I drove along the road up to the old surveillance building, I glanced across at the Jeep's two other occupants. Andrew Davenport, of the British intelligence services, was still apparently fast asleep, lanky frame sprawled out across the back seat. Beside me, Detective Bobby Goren was apparently off in a world of his own, staring out of the window and occasionally gesturing fiercely at an imaginary opponent, as if carrying on a conversation in his head. He had surprisingly graceful hands. I wondered whether if you got to know him well enough, you'd be able to interpret them, like sign language. Not for the first time, I wished his partner, Detective Eames, was there. Aside from the fact it would have meant I wasn't the only woman involved on this operation, it might have meant he wouldn't have noticed me acting like some stupid kid earlier that day. I winced, flashing back to my being sat in the stuffy room earlier that day…

…In my defence, the meeting to plan out the surveillance operation we were all involved with had gone on for over two hours, and so far my biggest contribution had been answering a couple of dummy questions my boss had slung at me in a desperate attempt to remind the rest of the room why I was there. Tim Whitefield, Senior Liaison Officer between the NYPD & Interpol, was a decent guy, whose patience was visibly fraying as he tried to keep the meeting on track. With five different organisations in the room, he was fighting a losing battle. The really annoying thing was, we all knew why we were there. We all knew what we had to do. Unfortunately, as so often happens, we had gotten into a wrangle over the details.

Along with everyone else in the room, I'd been involved for the past month in a surveillance operation on the head of an Eastern European criminal gang, one Ivan Shorokogat. We'd been called in after the NYPD Major Case squad encountered him on the trail of a seemingly unrelated case involving the death in suspicious circumstances of the wife of a wealthy Russian businessman. Their investigation had linked him to a series of deaths following illegal abortions among poor Eastern European immigrants over the past few months. Unbelievably, it seemed that beauty treatments using stem cells from aborted foetuses were the current in-thing among some sections of Russian society. The trend was spreading into Russian emigrant communities worldwide, and Shorokogat was not one to ignore a growing market. As he wasn't a US citizen, and several European police forces had been trying to nail him for drug and women trafficking across the continent, Interpol had been called in. We were co-ordinating the investigation, providing back-up information and providing translation services - in the form of yours truly, Sienna Tovitz, Interpol Russian-English and Ukrainian-English translator and interpreter.

We were also attempting to prevent the investigation becoming a free-for-all. So far we had got the list of organisations involved down to four; ourselves, the NYPD, the CIA and the British intelligence services. Andrew Davenport had been sitting on my left and attempting to look interested, a fight I'd given up on when I realised that my only reason for being in the meeting was to ensure that Tim Whitefield wasn't outnumbered. And, it seemed, to provide something for the two CIA guys, Smith and Timkowski, who'd arranged the actual surveillance, to look at when they got bored with arguing with the fifth organisation present at the meeting, the US Army. The NYPD detective who had originally alerted us to Shorokogat's presence in New York, Robert Goren of Major Case, was seated on my right, doing what looked suspiciously like doodling on the notepad in front of him. To judge by the way he was sprawled in his chair, eyes half-closed, he was as bored with listening to Whitefield wrangle with the CIA and the Army over who exactly was going to pay for all of this (and who'd be responsible if it didn't work out) as I was. Like myself and Davenport, he was there primarily to help interpret any information received.

Also, as Goren's six-foot-plus presence couldn't help reminding us, if this operation didn't come off, he'd be the one to make the arrest. If we couldn't get Shorokogat for trafficking and funding terrorism, we'd at least get him for illegal beauty treatments. Every so often, he'd look vaguely around the room, frown, and then return to his doodling. My best guess at why was the absence of his partner, Alexandra Eames. During the course of their investigation into Shorokogat, one of his bodyguards had attacked her and Goren when they'd been attempting to enforce a search warrant at his house. Shorokogat himself hadn't been there, and the bodyguard was now awaiting trial for assaulting a police officer - he'd broken Eames' arm whilst she'd been trying to cuff him for interfering with their search. I'd gleaned from Whitefield that it wasn't a bad break and she was actually back at work, albeit behind a desk. Also, that shortly following the bodyguard breaking her arm she'd kicked him hard enough to dislocate one of his knees; I had a feeling I'd like her if we met. She wasn't, however, recovered enough to manage the six-hour round trip up a narrow road with giant potholes which we were currently discussing, so Goren was here on his own.

I got the impression that he was not happy with this; also that, to judge by the rumours that he'd picked up the bodyguard and slammed the guy into the wall whilst at the scene (dislocated knee and all), Shorokogat would be a very unhappy man if he found himself being interrogated by the NYPD. Goren didn't look especially violent – he if anything looked half-asleep – but given that he had to be at least six-foot plus with broad shoulders and huge hands, I could easily see where the rumour had come from. We'd spoken occasionally on the phone whilst I was doing the translating; he had an oddly hesitant manner of speaking for someone with his reputation for successful interrogation. This was the first time I'd actually met him in person.

At present we had enough intelligence to nail Shorokogat for the illegal stem-cell treatments, but that was relatively minor compared to everything else he was involved with; the trafficking, extortion in his home state and possible links to terrorist organisations. We also needed to do this swiftly as he was planning to fly back to the Ukraine in three days' time for his brother's wedding. Luckily for us, one of Shorokogat's hobbies was sailing, and he was planning to take a trip in his latest acquisition out along Long Island Sound. The plan was that we'd head up along the coast to an old building on Army territory near the route Shorokogat was planning to take, from whence the CIA guys, Smith & Timkowski, would be able to listen in on any conversations he might be having whilst out on the boat with his friends. If the information received confirmed what we'd already gathered, we'd be able to contact our colleagues back in New York City, and have a welcoming committee ready for Shorokogat when he returned from his trip.

In order to do this, we'd need to pass through an Army training base further up the East Coast in Connecticut; the building we were planning to use was only accessible via a single track road from the base, which occasionally used it for training simulations. The plan was that we'd simply pass ourselves off as regular US Army (no need for several hundred loose-mouthed recruits plus whoever they might talk to off-duty to know about what we were planning), and then head up there under cover of being on a training exercise. I had tried to understand why in an era of satellite communications, Smith and colleague needed to be physically near the guy, or at least within a range of one mile, in order to listen in. The explanation had made my head spin, and I'd finally admitted defeat.

It wasn't actually important that I understood how the bugging process worked anyway. All I needed to do (all!) was translate the intelligence received into English with sufficient accuracy that we could be confident of planning the arrest and getting the result, with a view to later on using it in court. I'd had help during the earlier stages, but it had been decided to take only one translator along on this operation, and I was the most fluent at translating Shorokogat's mixture of Russian & Ukrainian conversations; the legacy of a childhood spent growing up in Russia with Ukrainian neighbours. So, here I was. Spies to the left of me, policemen to the right, there I was, trying desperately to stay awake. Seriously, this was a waste of time. The only reason Smith was dragging out the discussions was that he thought the CIA should be in charge, and determined to turn the whole thing into a pissing contest. He was now implying that the CIA shouldn't be paying for himself and Timkowski to come along on the surveillance operation. Whitefield was doing his best not to lose it, but I could see he was seriously annoyed after two hours of this. I sighed.

I should really have been more excited; this was the biggest operation I'd been involved with since I joined Interpol, and certainly the most responsibility I'd ever undertaken. It would be my first time on an active operation, 'out of the office', as we liked to say. After two hours of listening to Whitefield argue with the CIA & the Army, I was almost ready to admit defeat and go to sleep at the table. Inspired by the ongoing arguments, I'd decided to try translating "Why do men always turn every discussion in a testosterone-filled game of who has the biggest penis?" into every language I knew in a desperate attempt to stay awake. So far I'd done Ukrainian, Russian and French. I'd picked up a smattering of Western European languages during a year's travelling following my graduating college, and I'd deliberately picked a difficult sentence to increase the challenge. I was stuck on the German.

I was frowning over the German word for 'testosterone', when I suddenly realised that Goren had roused himself from his stupor and was pacing round the table. Apparently he'd decided to join in the ongoing whose-is-biggest argument, as if we needed another participant. An inner evil voice muttered _He's six foot four and must be at least a size 13; what do you want to bet he doesn't have to worry about losing that contest?_ I told the evil voice to shut the hell up and go away. There's a time and a place for scurrilous speculations about co-workers, and that time and place is not in the middle of a serious criminal investigation. Goren was now arguing with Smith about his (Smith's) view that, to put it crudely, since Shorokogat wasn't a US citizen and what he did didn't affect US citizens at present (apart from the illegal stem-cell treatments, but that was a domestic law-enforcement issue), funding the extra surveillance operation should not be a CIA priority.

Goren appeared to be taking the view, punctuated by much flailing of those large hands, that it should be a priority on the grounds that Shorokogat was a potential threat, and that in any case we had a moral duty to arrest him if we possibly could. I reminded myself that he'd interviewed some of the illegal abortion victims, several of whom were seriously, possibly irreversibly, injured, which could explain the way he was leaning over the desk and glaring Smith in the eyes. Whitefield took advantage of the distraction to press home the point that if this was going to work, we needed to get started within the next few hours. I took advantage of it to sneak a glance at Goren's notepad, which he'd left temptingly near my chair. If I just leaned over and scanned it carefully… I could give myself a near-coronary by noticing that he'd written neatly, in German, "It's 'testosteron'. And we don't ALL do that."

Oooohhshit.

I'd just managed to make myself look like a complete idiot in the eyes of someone I was going to have to work with for the next day and night, on the most important project I'd undertaken in my career. _Really_ good going, Sienna! Damn damn damn damn damn. How the hell did he know German? I realised I was blushing and staring at the notepad, and covered quickly by looking up and pasting on a 'bright and interested' look. Unfortunately, I managed to time my looking up with Goren's pacing round the table so that I made eye contact directly with him. He grinned, just faintly, and raised an eyebrow. I blushed even more. Damn, damn, damn!

Finally, he returned to his chair, having won his argument with Smith, who gave way grudgingly and agreed that he and Timkowski would join us on the surveillance operation. Whitefield wrapped up the meeting with a relieved sigh and instructions to be ready to move out, Army uniforms and all, in three hours' time. As I headed out of the room, hoping to avoid making myself look even more stupid, I could sense Goren looking at me out of the corner of his eye, and smiling very faintly.

This did not look set to be the most enjoyable 48 hours of my life. Not at all.

**Author's Notes**: I repeat my earlier disclaimer about my lack of knowledge about the inner workings of the CIA, Interpol, the Army, the British intelligence services and the NYPD…. Having decided to write a Criminal Intent fic, I realised fairly quickly that I was going to be hampered by the following facts; a) I've never been to New York, b) I didn't want to duplicate every other 'Bobby and Alex' fic out there, c) it's really hard to write dialogue for Goren when he's in full-on "screw with the suspect's head" mode, because so much of it comes from Vincent D'Onofrio's acting, and d) I'm terrible at writing mysteries. Plus, I needed a reason for Goren to be in army fatigues, because I wanted an excuse to look at lots of pictures of Vincent D'Onofrio in army uniform and call it research. (Yes, I am that sad.)

So, this is the result. I thought it would be interesting to take Goren out of New York and get away from the 'solve the mystery' scenario. Don't worry, he's going to say something in the next instalment. Quite a lot, in fact. And Andrew is going to wake up.

Lest it be thought I'm being unduly gruesome in my imaginings, I should point out that the illegal stem-cell treatments really do exist. You can find out more about them (should you wish to) online on the UK 'Guardian' newspaper's website.


	3. The Calm Before

Two hours down the road and halfway through "American Pie", the radio dissolved into a fuzz of static. Goren & I reached simultaneously for the controls. He got there first. I listened with half an ear to a blend of "_American girls, all weather and noise…. Fzzzt …. Always the real thing….freak weather warning, just in…. screeeeeee…… the senator claims… fzzzzt_…" With a shrug, he turned the radio off. We sat in silence for a while. I decided to make the effort.

"Thanks for letting me drive." If in doubt, be polite.

"No… no problem." A pause, then, "Usually my partner drives anyway."

I assumed he meant his colleague. "Detective Eames?"

"Yeah. She's a better driver than I am, plus I like having the time to think."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm sorry but I… I didn't quite catch your name."

Which was interesting coming from a man who was supposed to have a photographic memory and perfect recall. Then again, at least he hadn't said "You have an interesting name", which most people tend to lead off with.

"Sienna. Sienna Tovitz."

"It's pretty."

Oh God, this was going to be hard work. "Yeah. You want to know how I got it?" A shrug with outspread hands; international sign language for _Yes, if you want to tell me_. "Most people assume there's a family history there, but truth be told, my mom was redecorating the spare room during the pregnancy – this was before they realised that wasn't a great idea. She saw the name on a sample chart, thought it sounded pretty."

I waited. And waited. Five minutes later, I was impressed. "By the way, thank you."

He wriggled round in the seat to face me and tipped his head on one side.

"Usually when I tell people that story, they come back with "Well, I guess you were lucky not to end up being called 'Hint of Beige' or 'Sky Blue'", or something like that."

He grinned. He actually had rather a nice smile; I couldn't help responding. "Thought you might have heard that a few times. You're welcome."

This was going better. "You know, I didn't believe what Shorokogat was accused of at first. Thought it was just some horror story from the internet, something one of my idiot colleagues had stuck on my desk as a joke… How can people believe that? Believe that injecting the remains of foetuses makes them live longer?"

He waved a hand. "Well, in our society, people inject poison into their foreheads to make them look more youthful… there's a long history of that kind of thing, belladonna drops in the eyes, white lead facepaint… but, well, people can rationalise anything if they want something badly enough."

I sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be horrified. I mean, I believe in abortion, at least in abortion with some safeguards, so I guess I don't get to complain about people using the remains. It just seems… wrong.. somehow."

"One way to see it would be like this. If you had a choice between saving a work of art and a person from a fire, what would you save?"

"The person."

"But that doesn't mean that, if you could rescue both, it would be okay for you to throw the artwork into the fire because you felt like it. It's still valuable… just not as valuable as the person… saying that things have different… levels.. of value isn't to say that things which are less valuable have no value at all."

"Hmm. I'm going to have to think about that." I noticed he'd avoided giving his own views on the subject.

"Then again," said a voice from behind me, "you could argue that something is either valuable, or it is not valuable; when you talk about degrees of value, you're on the slippery slope." Davenport's face loomed into my vision in the rear-view mirror; he sat up and propped his arms against the back of the chairs.

"I thought you were asleep," I replied, twitching the wheel to swerve round a pothole.

"This is more interesting." Davenport grinned. He had scruffy blond hair, a pointed nose and a face which might be best described as unremarkable.Apart from his eyes, which were light grey, and extremely sharp. "I don't need so much sleep anyway, but for this I want to be ready; two years of my life I've spent tracking Shorokogat. Not just me, of course, but I'm the one here."

"And you think you won't have to after tonight?" Goren turned round to face Davenport.

"I have a good feeling, and my feelings are very rarely wrong. This time tomorrow, he'll be in custody, and, thanks to us, the world will be a marginally better place." He glanced out of the window, possibly picturing whatever reward awaited him back home in England.

"Let's not count our chickens," I contributed, although secretly I was pleased to hear Davenport was so confident. Frankly I was nervous enough about the whole thing. Everyone else had years of experience of this kind of thing. I had a _lot_ of experience of translating Russian & Ukrainian into English, but usually I didn't have to do it on my own, in the field, taking sole responsibility for the results.

"Heh, yes. Rumours of a hurricane…" Davenport was still staring out of the window. Goren & I exchanged puzzled glances.

"I'm sorry?"

"Uh?"

"You said just then… rumours of a hurricane. What does that mean?"

"Oh, sorry. Where I come from, it means, 'famous last words'. When I was a kid, the village I lived in was hit by a hurricane. The night before it happened, the weatherman came on TV and said 'There won't be a hurricane'. Several million pounds' worth of damage and fifteen dead later, they realised they'd got that one wrong."

"I didn't think you got hurricanes in the UK."

"We didn't used to either. That's climate change for you; you get freak storms blowing up out of nowhere."

"Like 'global warming'?" I asked.

"Nah. According to a friend of mine, once the Gulf Stream shifts, we're on course to end up with the same weather as everyone else on our latitude. I hear Moscow is lovely in January."

"It's not," I said, from bitter experience. "How about New York?"

"Will cease to exist once the ice sheets melts. Like places on the coast worldwide… everyone moves inland, or drowns."

"You're very calm for a man talking about the deaths of millions," Goren contributed. Thanks to his sunglasses, I couldn't quite judge whether he was kidding Davenport or meant it seriously. Davenport shrugged; he looked faintly surprised by the question. "It's not my problem. Shorokogat is my problem."

I took a deep breath. "Can I ask a favour?"

Two nods and a couple of "Sure"s. "I've had Shorokogat stuck in my head for the past month. I need a break from him for an hour or so if I'm going to be translating live in a couple of hours. Can we talk about something else?"

"Okay." Two more nods. Goren turned to face me. I noticed as he turned his head that he had a few silvery threads in his dark hair, and wondered idly how old he was. Late thirties, maybe forty? Not much older... I was twenty-six, that put about ten to fifteen years between us. "So… what do you want to talk about?"

"Not sports," Davenport declared. "All American sports just look wrong to me. How about you start by telling us how _you_ got into this?"

He evidently lacked Goren's talent for the indirect approach. I shrugged and prepared to give my potted life history. "I'm a US citizen; my father's a second-generation Russian immigrant. We moved back to Russia when I was just a baby; he went to work in his brother's business. I grew up in Moscow with Ukrainian neighbours; went to the local schools, so I speak both Russian & Ukrainian, along with a smattering of other European languages. Moved back to the States when I was fourteen, went to college, got my degree in Russian & Eastern European languages, bummed around Europe & Asia for a while travelling, realised I needed to earn a living, didn't fancy translating for oil companies, decided the world needed me to fight crime, so I joined Interpol. I spend most of my time based over in Europe working with the European police forces; they tend to be the worst affected by the Russian Mafia… but, you already know that. How about you?"

Davenport shrugged. "I was a copper for a year after leaving school. Got tired of doing the same thing every day, also I realised I hated wearing a uniform and taking orders. Quit, went to university, got my degree, six years later, here I am." I nearly pointed out that that was missing out some fairly important bits of his life, then remembered he almost certainly couldn't tell us anything about them.

"You know where the phrase 'copper' comes from?" Goren asked.

Davenport didn't. I did. "Bastardised form of the Latin verb _capere_, meaning 'to capture'. Either that, or it's a reference to the copper buttons they used to have on their uniforms." I felt rather than saw two smiles, one surprised, one amused. "I spend a _lot_ of time working with policemen. So, how about you?"

Half an hour later, we'd learned that Goren had been working with his new partner for the past nine months, having been through three others before her, that Davenport had studied Philosophy at college (of all subjects – Goren guessed it on the third go), I'd told the story of how I'd spent one summer travelling Europe with a backpack from one protest or summit to the next as a member of the Babel group of volunteer translators, nearly getting blown up by a landmine during a trip to some of the former Yugoslavian states (Davenport seemed to find this amusing), and we'd found out that between us we could remember only half the words to 'Hotel California' (I managed to briefly tune the radio to a station that played instrumental-only versions of very old songs).

I'd also found out how Goren knew German; he'd been a soldier himself before joining the NYPD. I'd never have pictured him in the Army when we'd met earlier in New York, but somehow it was easier to see when he was wearing fatigues. By now I was feeling a lot more relaxed about the next 24 hours, and Shorokogat had temporarily vanished from my head. Perhaps this was going to work after all. Suddenly, a faint blob appeared on the horizon.

"Hey, is that Whitefield and the others?"

I squinted. "Yep, looks like it." I could make out the small blob that was the other Jeep, and behind it a larger blob that must be the surveillance building.

"They set off a lot earlier than us."

I shrugged and feigned nonchalance. "I must have been driving faster than I thought." Liar! "You think I should slow down."

Davenport grinned, a shark's grin that I saw in the rear-view mirror. "No, I think we should catch them up. Let's not delay things here."

I turned to Goren. "How bothered are you about enforcing the speed limit?"

He returned my grin. "I'm not watching the speedometer."

"Excellent." I floored the gas pedal, and felt the Jeep surge forwards. We began to close on the other Jeep and I twitched the wheel from side to side to avoid the potholes. As the other Jeep's rear view loomed large in the windshield, I could sense Goren twitching slightly beside me. I let the front of the Jeep nose up to them, until I could see Whitefield's eyes widening slightly in their rear-view mirror. As we drew up to the surveillance building, I waited until the last possible minute, then tapped the brakes, let them draw ahead a few feet and rolled gently to a stop behind them. As I pulled the parking brake on, I could see Davenport grinning, and Goren looking… well, _relieved_ is probably the best way to put it. I hopped down from the Jeep. Whitefield & the CIA men were already beginning to unload their gear from the trunk.

Whitefield looked us over from behind his sunglasses. "Well, you're a few minutes late." (Did I mention he has a sense of humour?)

"Sorry. I'll drive faster next time."

"Get in here as fast as you can. We've got an hour before they come into range." He turned and followed Smith and Timkowski inside. I looked the building over. It looked like nothing so much as an abandoned holiday home, built by someone who liked extreme privacy with a nice seaview, but the walls were solid stone, the windows were tiny, and I guessed the locks would be the best available. Neither the army nor the CIA are fond of anyone playing with their toys.

"Do you always drive like that?" Goren asked as he climbed out of the Jeep, stretching to get the kinks out of his back. Well, when you're given an opening like that…

"Nah. Sometimes my driving is just terrible." Behind me, Davenport retrieved our bags from the trunk of the car. He almost bounced towards us, looking exhilarated. It was infectious; I caught myself grinning back, catching the predator's smile from him and Goren. I could feel the same sense of purpose coming from both of them; the prey was in sight. Well, they couldn't catch it without me. (Perhaps if I kept repeating that, it wouldn't sound quite so terrifying.)

I walked round the Jeep to hand Goren the water bottle; and was suddenly aware that he somehow looked a lot bigger all of a sudden. I wasn't sure if it was the boots adding to his height, or just the fact that he'd pulled himself up to his full height and thrown his shoulders back a little. Broad shoulders, big chest, large hands… The besuited, awkward-limbed city detective I'd met back in New York seemed to have gone, and I realised why one of the people Tim & I had spoken to prior to our flying to New York to set up the surveillance had referred to him as a chameleon. He _did_ look extremely at home in the fatigues. A random evil thought flitted across my mind, wildly speculating about whether he'd be equally at home getting _out_ of the fatigues… and_ why_ was I thinking this now? This really wasn't the time to develop inappropriate attractions to co-workers. I was aware suddenly that I was staring, and quickly flicked my eyes away, but not quickly enough. Goren caught my eye, and smiled. "Let's play."

I followed him and Davenport towards the building. Inside I could hear the others moving around, setting up the equipment. Before stepping through and shutting the door, I took a last look around at the outside world. We wouldn't be seeing it for a while. I took in the two Jeeps, spattered with mud, the battered stone of the surveillance building, the utter silence of miles of land with no-one else around us, the steep drop down the cliffs to the water below. I looked out at miles of dark water, shimmering slightly in the late afternoon's heat.

Somewhere out there, Shorokogat was enjoying his new boat, not suspecting that he was (we hoped) about to put himself away for life, if not in fact get himself the death penalty. I reminded myself where he'd got the money to buy the boat, squared my shoulders, and followed Goren and Davenport in. _Let's play_, indeed.


	4. Rumours of a Hurricane

Two hours later, myself, Goren, Davenport, Whitefield & Smith were puzzling over what we'd overheard on Timkowski's surveillance gear, and trying to work out if we'd actually overheard anything useful from the hour-or-so's worth of conversation between Shorokogat and his friends, before their boat moved out of listening range. The equipment had worked just fine. I'd yet to hear Timkowski string together more than about three words, but he clearly really knew his stuff, it sounded as though Shorokogat was in the next room, which made my job immensely easier. Just as well, really. Smith, Whitefield, Goren and Davenport had pounced on the translation as soon as I'd completed it, and immediately started trying to work out how it fitted in with what we'd already learned.

So far, we had learned nothing other than that Shorokogat was enjoying his new boat, his friends were glad he'd invited them and that he'd taken his fifteen-year-old son with him. If we had spent all this time and effort just to eavesdrop on a family outing, a lot of very senior people were going to be very annoyed indeed at the waste of resources. Luckily, that was Whitefield's problem, not mine. My problem was that I still wasn't too happy with part of the translation I'd done. I wasn't at all sure I'd heard the speaker, one of Shorokogat's two crew members, very clearly; he had an odd pronunciation and seemed to be barely able to speak Russian. Desperate to rest my eyes from staring at my notes, and my ears from listening to Timkowski's recordings, I glanced out into the small hallway, which was beginning to fall into shadow as the late afternoon and evening approached. It seemed a bit early for that, but we'd probably been at this longer than I thought.

We were in the biggest room in the small building, which had no windows apart from one small skylight. Whitefield finished summarising what we'd learnt so far from this, which was, effectively, nothing new. Well, this had always been something of a long shot… In the corner, Timkowski's bulky figure hunched over his surveillance equipment, deftly twiddling the controls to see if he could pick anything else up. The air of gloom among the rest of us was almost palpable. He glanced across at Goren, who was leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. I could see Smith rolling his eyes. "Detective Goren, have you got anything to add"?

"There's an old Russian story," Goren replied, not taking his eyes off the ceiling. "There's a checkpoint on the border between Russia and Estonia; this is around 1920 during the War of Independence… Every Thursday, a man who works at the local weapons factory, manufacturing rifles, rides up to the checkpoint and tells the guards that he's going to visit a friend on the other side of the border. Every time, they search him thoroughly, and they never find anything, but they notice over time, he's wearing better clothes, better shoes, eats well, and the Estonian fighters have better guns than they have…. They keep searching him, but they never find anything on him, can't prove he's doing anything other than what he says… A long time afterwards, one of the guards meets the man in a bar, they sit down and have a drink together, and start talking, and the guard finds out the truth... Now, do you know what the man was smuggling?" He smiled, and looked at us expectantly, not at all fazed by the synchronised _what the fuck?_ looks he was getting from Smith and Whitefield.

Inspiration struck. "He was smuggling horses?"

"He was smuggling horses."

Davenport laughed, and added "And they were selling the horses to pay for the guns?" Goren nodded, grinning widely now.

"And this helps us _how_?" Smith interjected.

"You think Shorokogat's smuggling _boats_?" Whitefield asked. Goren shook his head, and rubbed a hand over his face. "No. Not boats, not enough profit, he wouldn't get personally involved… he's smuggling something _on_ the boats."

"He can't be," Whitefield replied. "He's under surveillance all the time; he can't be hiding anything on them, not drugs, not foetal remains… nothing."

"If you want to hide something, hide it where _everyone _looks, because they'll know it can't possibly be there, because they've looked…" Smith mused, looking intrigued.

"What do we see when we look at Shorokogat's boat?" Goren was pacing the room now. I could almost hear him thinking, like being close to a transformer in the rain, when you can hear the energy buzzing around it (was this what life was like for his partner _all the time_?).

"We see; the boat, the supplies… the crew," Davenport finished the sentence and the two of them froze simultaneously.

Whitefield shook his head. "Can't be. He has the same number of crewmates every time he goes sailing… we know that he often hires new staff when he sails" (he looked at Davenport, who'd supplied this information) "but that's because he's supposed to be an awful employer, they leave swearing never to work for him again."

"Are they the same crewmates every time? Does anyone check that the people on the boat when it returns are the same people that _left_ with it, not just people who look like the crew, wearing the same clothes?"

"Wouldn't there be extra crew if he was picking someone up on the journey?" I asked, and regretted it, as four faces turned towards me with identical _You really are new to this, aren't you_? expressions. Shorokogat dealt in drugs and trafficked women. He wasn't going to balk at shoving someone he'd just hired over the railings, probably with a knock over the head to ensure they didn't inconveniently manage to swim ashore. People have accidents at sea all the time… What had the crew said whilst we'd been listening?

"Everyone shut up a minute." I held up a hand. "Can I hear the recording again, the part where we heard the crewmember speaking to Shorokogat?" Silently, Timkowski rewound the tape and I listened, shutting my eyes to block out the feeling of eight eyes staring at me. The recording ended, Goren started to ask "Did you…", then trailed off as I held up my hand again, mouthing the words. I tried saying them out loud, repeating what the man had said, and suddenly realised. I was using the wrong accent. If I tried saying them with a Serbo-Croat accent, not Russian or Ukrainian, then I made the exact same pronunciation errors. I opened my eyes. "The crewmember's not Russian or Ukrainian. He's Serbo-Croat."

"Have we got any pictures of the crew?" Davenport asked, urgently.

"Here." Whitefield shoved the file at him; he and Goren pored over them. Davenport flipped through them, then stopped, pointing at one picture with an expression of utter triumph. I'd never seen anyone grin that widely before.

"I thought this face looked familiar." Davenport was practically crowing. "I know who this is. That's Yegeny Shirkirov. Or rather, it's someone who looks just like him. Unlucky for him; I'd guess he's now at the bottom of the Atlantic."

"You're certain?"

"What did Shorokogat say? 'Hope you had a pleasant journey here?'" Davenport looked at me for confirmation; I nodded. I was certain of that.

"Why would he ask a crewmember that? It makes no sense. Shirkirov vanished, as far as anyone could tell, just over five days ago…"

Goren picked up his thought. "I would guess that if we pull the records, we'll find that a cargo flight from Zagreb Airport made an unscheduled refuelling stop further up the East Coast following a transatlantic flight at some point in the last few days. I think he travelled down from there somehow, maybe a fishing boat, something that wouldn't attract too much attention…"

Davenport finished the thought. "Shorokogat shoved the crewmember who looked like him overboard, then picked Shirkirov up just before the boat came into listening range… we were unlucky not to hear that, I guess."

"Did Shorokogat have any Serbo-Croatian crew when he left?" Goren asked, urgently.

"No." Smith shook his head. "I'm certain."

Goren turned to me. "You're certain about the accent."

"One hundred percent. It _can't _be anything else."

Davenport was grinning so widely I was worried the back of his head would fall off. "Yegeny Shirkirov, known to be involved in smuggling arms to Chechen rebels, in hiding since the Serbo-Croatian authorities and the UN declared him to be wanted for crimes against humanity, responsible for the deaths of more people during the Yugoslavian civil wars than anyone is able to count, including at least one incident where he forced a group of people to dig a trench, then jump in whilst his cronies poured petrol on them and set them alight… he makes Shorokogat look small, and they have no idea we're listening in. He'll be returning on the boat like a little spring lamb."

Whitefield reached for the radio. "Excellent work, everyone…" He switched it on and began to contact the authorities back in New York. The five of us, including Timkowski, who'd looked up from his equipment, exchanged wide grins. I suddenly understood why Goren & Davenport were so devoted to their careers. The sheer rush of catching someone like that, of _knowing _that the bad guys were going down, that _you'd_ been the one to do it, _your_ intelligence, your knowledge, your skills… I was going to request extra training when I got back…. and at that moment, the sky lit up so brightly that we all threw our hands over our eyes. The lights went out. Timkowski ripped his headphones off, swearing as a burst of static squawked out of them, Whitefield dropped the radio and there was a crash of thunder outside so loud that for a minute I seriously thought we'd been attacked.

Davenport, Goren and I sprinted outside the room to the windows in the entrance, staring out in mutual stunned shock as a wave of falling rain burst over the windows. It had gone pitch black outside, so dark it looked like night had fallen prematurely. Another flash of lightning, another thunderclap, and the sound of rain being driven against the windows with such force I instinctively stepped back from them. I turned to see Whitefield emerging from the surveillance room, clutching the radio and shaking his head. "I can't get a signal – too much interference. I'm going out to the Jeep to see if it's clearer out there. Smith's going to look at the generator." He rammed a hat on his head and sprinted out of the door. I could barely see him after he'd gone a few paces; the wind and rain were so fierce that it was almost impossible to see anything, and the rainwater was already beginning to form a new river outside the door.

We stared out in silence at the churning sea. It was so dark it looked as though night had fallen prematurely, apart from the odd flash of white where the waves were breaking on the shore. Davenport was the first to break the silence. "Well, we're fucked, aren't we?"


	5. Orange Lightning

Half an hour later, Smith had fixed the generator, the storm was still raging outside and Whitefield still had not returned from the Jeep. We were all waiting to see who would crack first and suggest going to look for him. Apart from Timkowski, who was concentrating on his surveillance equipment, going up and down through the different wavelengths, trying to see if he could pick up anything useful.

Davenport had attempted to make conversation by asking if anyone had thought to check the weather forecast before we headed out here. Smith, with more forbearance than I'd have given him credit for, replied that it was a freak storm, so by definition it wasn't on the forecast. I'd admired Davenport's ability to ignore the fact that he'd just annoyed the hell out of everyone in the room, and that all but one of us carried a gun. Silence followed, accompanied by a lot of staring into the distance, wondering what we were going to do now and wondering how long we'd be stuck here. There was no way we could drive back to the Army base through this.

I was sat going through my translation of what we'd picked up from our surveillance for about the fourth or fifth time, and I was fed up with looking at it. Frankly, I was bored. I'm used to spending hours concentrating on complex tasks. Most people are aware that you can't translate literally from one language into another. The rules are different (in English, say, you put the adjective before the verb, in French it's the other way around), but, more than that, a language grows out of its culture. Translating direct speech in another language is not a mechanical matter of finding which word matches. You have not only find the words, but hunt after the _sense_ behind what the person is saying, then find a way of conveying that in the language you're translating into, whilst at the same time still listening to what the person speaking is saying and translating that too… it requires very fast, complex thinking.

This kind of thing is one of the reasons I hate meetings so much. I'm not good at the sort of patience you need to put up with other people's posturing. Of course, I work as part of a team most of the time, but that's different. The interplay of other similar minds, other intelligent minds, is just fun, even when we've been arguing with each other over the _precise_ meaning of three sentences for the past hour. I tend to win a lot of those arguments, partly because I have a real gift for languages, having been brought up speaking three tongues from birth and learning more along the way.

Recently, though, I'd been aware that I was beginning to enjoy the challenge of the arguments about the meaning of the intelligence we were working on almost more than the actual translating. It was one of the reasons I'd pushed to come along on this operation. I was beginning to no longer feel stretched by the job I was doing, feeling bored… I sighed, and looked around. Smith and Davenport were still staring into space, each ignoring the other, Timkowski was still hunched over the surveillance gear, and Goren was standing by the window, staring out at the storm.

In a desperate attempt to prevent my brain from suffocating due to the boredom, I decided to play the Animal Game inside my head. It's one of my many mental tricks for surviving dull meetings, and doesn't require a pen and paper, unlike the Translating Game, of which the less said the better… I was still kicking myself about playing that in our meeting earlier in the day. It's quite simple. You try to match the other people in the room to animals, either real or imaginary. (A fellow translator at Interpol taught me this. We used to play it together in dull meetings. He then tried to teach me the Funeral Game, where you kill time by planning the funeral of everyone present in the room. Boy, I was relieved when he got fed up with Interpol and transferred out.)

With the Animal Game, you get bonus points for a particularly apt or non-cliched match. I wouldn't win many points with the selections I was making here. Timkowski was obviously a bat, with his listening skills. Bats are quite small and dainty, though, which wasn't really him. He obviously lifted weights on a regular basis. You got quite big bats in rainforests though... he could be a flying fox, perhaps. Yes, that matched him quite nicely. Smith, with his tendency to sit dead still, then suddenly dart out and annoy everyone, reminded me of nothing so much as a lizard. It was something about the way he seemed to sit still, coldly calculating the best course of action… that, and he had mean eyes. It was a shame; with his regular features and neatly cropped brown hair, he could have been quite good-looking. Nevertheless, there was just something about his perpetually cold expression that instinctively had me raising my guard around him. I didn't trust him further than I could throw him, and since he was half a foot taller than I and obviously in shape, that wasn't far.

Davenport? If he'd had dark hair, he'd have been a crow, or perhaps a raven. Something about the pointy nose and sharp eyes… That, and they're intelligent birds. Davenport didn't quite buzz with intelligence the way Goren did, but you couldn't spend any length of time with him and not pick up the way he evaluated everything around him, quickly assessing anything he saw or heard and then processing it in that cynical way of his. And Goren himself? Interesting question. With his size, that neat, small nose and those elegant folded-back ears, the obvious answer was, a big cat of some sort. Maybe a panther, with that black hair? Nah, panthers are too feminine. Did you get black-furred lions? Maybe that was too much of a cliché… Besides, with lions it's the females who do the hunting, and Goren was too obviously a hunter himself for that analogy to work. Unless I tried casting myself in the role of a young lioness of the pride, part of his harem….

Okay, time to stop playing this game, this was getting silly. I wandered across to the window to see if the storm was dying down. Behind me, Smith reached across and snagged the transcripts I'd been working on. Not for the first time, I wondered _exactly_ why he and Timkowski were on this mission instead of, say, the FBI, given that terrorists on US soil fall under the purview of the FBI. The _official_ answer was that they had better knowledge of Shorokogat's activities than the FBI, since he hadn't previously been active in the US. Given that he was only in the US for a short period of time, it made more sense to send them along than try to bring the FBI up to speed.

I had my own theory that the unofficial answer might involve questions along the lines of "Back during the Cold War, where did Shorokogat get the money to set up in business in the first place?" and "Where did we used to get information about what the Soviets were up to in Yugoslavia?". I very strongly suspected that Shorokogat might have once been one of those criminals who happened to be very useful to the intelligence-gathering community, and a few things Tim Whitefield had said on the way over made me think he had his suspicions about the exact relationship between Shorokogat and the CIA too. I hadn't pursued this theory further because, frankly, I neither needed nor wanted to know any more than I did.

As I joined Goren at the window, I noticed that although he seemed still, his muscles were tense and his hands were twitching, just slightly. I had the weirdest impression that his hands were doing the equivalent of an entire body's-worth of fidgeting. He was staring out at the churning sea. The storm seemed to be dying down slightly, and a murky grey light was beginning to appear. I heard footsteps behind us; Davenport peered over my shoulder. We stood in depressed silence.

"Well, at least we know more than we did when we set out," I said, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"True. We know more than we did about someone who's almost certainly drowned," Davenport said morosely. I stared at the raging sea, imagined being stuck in a sailboat out there, and couldn't find the heart to argue. Davenport seemed to be taking this personally. I'd seen the same reaction a few times before. No-one in law enforcement of any kind likes to see their prey get away from them.

"They say drowning's an awful way to go," Davenport remarked, more thoughtfully. Beside me, Goren nodded vaguely. Davenport continued. "People think it's peaceful, but I read somewhere you can be conscious right up to the point where your lungs burst." The thought seemed to cheer him up; he was apparently oblivious to the fact that one of us was ignoring him and the other was fervently wishing he'd shut the hell up. "Unless something knocked you over the head first, I suppose…"

Goren turned his head and glowered at Davenport. "There was a kid on that boat."

Davenport stopped in mid-sentence. Then, in a more subdued voice, replied "Thank you for reminding me." We did some more staring in silence. I wondered what exactly Goren was finding so fascinating. His eyes were fixed on one point in particular… "What are you looking at?" I asked.

He stabbed at the window with one long finger. "Over there." We followed where he was pointing. As we looked, there was a bright flash of orange, then another. Then darkness. "Is that lightning?"

"I don't think you get orange lightning…" Goren replied in a thoughtful tone of voice. He was frowning now… Suddenly, Timkowski looked up from his equipment and called us over. His face was white. "Listen to this." He adjusted the equipment so that we could all hear. "This is the Coast Guard radio frequency…"

Crackling out into the room, we heard what was obviously a radio conversation between the local Coast Guard station and some kind of helicopter or search plane…

_"…Have you found them?"_

"_Negative, and we're going to have to return now. I can't risk leaving it any longer, we're already dangerously low on fuel. Is anyone else able to take over? Over."_

"_Negative. The conditions are too risky. Over."_

"_They'll have to hope that the tide takes them into that beach… Returning now. Over and out."_

"Given the listening range of this equipment, that plane is not more than a few miles from us," Timkowski added. We stared at each other in confusion. "Found who?" Davenport muttered, almost under his breath. I picked up what he must be thinking. Was Shorokogat still alive?


	6. Out Of My Depth, Paddling Hard

Before Davenport could pursue this line of thought any further, Goren broke into the conversation. "Orange lightning," he announced. We turned to look at him. "What we saw… must have been something on fire, maybe a boat or a plane. Can we get more information?"

"We can't risk contacting anyone else," Smith added, in a authoritative voice that got my hackles up. He wasn't in charge here, Whitefield was. _But Whitefield's not here_, I remembered with a pang of worry.

"Hold on." Timkowski interrupted the incipient argument and adjusted a few dials. "This is 121.5 MHz, the liferaft distress beacon frequency… if there's a liferaft anywhere near us, we should hear them on this."

We listened. At first there was silence, then a regular, repetitive pinging sound that set my teeth on edge. Timkowski nodded. "That's a distress beacon." He retuned the listening gear, and managed to pick up the Coast Guard frequency again. We heard the same voices as before, obviously the Coast Guard air control tower and whoever they'd been speaking to before.

"…_Did you see the wreckage? Over."_

"_We did see what must be the site of the crash… near the coastline… the aircraft must have caught fire… we did pick up a distress beacon signal, so some of them probably got out. We couldn't get near… the wind is too fierce and visibility is too low. Over." _

"_Will try to raise the Army base nearby. Over." _

"_Good luck. Tell them to hurry, the weather is too poor… them to have any chance of survival if they're in the water long…" _

The signal cut out – they must have flown out of range – and there followed one of those endless seconds in which you can almost hear the thinking going on.

"So, an aircraft crashed nearby, in the sea," Davenport said, rapidly putting together what we'd heard. I remembered that his real job title, when he wasn't being a liaison officer, was 'Intelligence Analyst'. "Probably quite a big one to judge by those two orange flashes, I would guess that was the fuel tanks, maybe the electrical storm caused a fire onboard. Probably not a jet though, it would have been bigger, plus jets tend to sink too quickly for anyone to get out. We're picking up a distress beacon, so some of them must have got out… unless that liferaft was from Shorokogat's boat…"

"I think I'd have picked that up before now," Timkowski contributed.

"So, there's a liferaft out there somewhere. For a plane with two fuel tanks, I'd say it would hold between eight to twenty people, maybe more, can't be sure, and it must be nearby if we're picking up the signal…"

Suddenly, Goren turned and dashed across to the window. He studied the view rapidly. "Do we have any binoculars, anything like that?"

"On the shelf next to your head," Timkowski contributed. I noticed that Smith gave him a poisonous look. He was obviously still determined to continue the pissing contest. Goren grabbed the binoculars and studied the sea. "There… I think there…" Davenport & I stared where he was pointing. We passed the binoculars round, and we could both see what Goren had seen first; two very small red lights, winking against the dark grey sea. He had sharp eyes.

"Does anyone know if the tide is going in or out?" Goren asked. We looked at him. "If it's going in… they'll be washed towards us."

"We need to get out there," I said suddenly. "They'll need our help… what can we do?"

"Do?" Smith repeated words, and we all turned to look at him. His face was set and his tone was utterly implacable. "We're not going to _do_ anything. We are not risking blowing our cover and that of this installation. I am going to look for Whitefield, and you are going to stay here."

The atmosphere in the room went from tense to supercharged. I looked around the room, and was suddenly very aware that I was not only the only female in the room, but the smallest and weakest person there. And probably the only one not armed. Timkowski was silent and morose, and I remembered that Smith was effectively his boss. Davenport looked at me and shrugged, somewhat apologetically. I remember the exact same shrug from the Jeep on the way up here, along with the words which accompanied it. "It's not my problem." And Goren? Was apparently nowhere to be seen.

I locked eyes with Smith, and my first thought, crazily, was that I'd got it wrong when I'd compared him to a lizard. A basilisk would have been more like it. Those were eyes that truly did not care that people would die if we didn't help them. I could see Smith's thought processes, familiar to me from several previous encounters with his type of mind, although never in this type of situation. He was thinking that the possible loss of intelligence if the cover of the listening post was blown might lead to the loss of more lives than the people from the plane. I could understand that point of view, but believed he was wrong about blowing our cover. I adopted my most reasonable tone of voice, and took a deep breath.

"We're here under cover. As far as anyone knows, we're US Army, out on a training mission, taking cover in this old abandoned building. We lock the surveillance gear in one of these rooms, bring the survivors – if there are any – up here, ship them down to the base. We keep our cover and this listening post's, the Army gets good publicity, and everyone goes home happy. And alive." I couldn't risk breaking eye contact with Smith, but thought I saw a very faint nod from Davenport in my peripheral vision.

Smith shook his head once. "It's too big a risk. I am the most senior person here, I'm CIA, and this is a CIA listening post. We are not risking it, and that's my last word on the subject. If you value your career, I suggest that that should be yours." He glared back, and I had to force myself to stand my ground. This situation could get very bad, very quickly. As a senior CIA man, Smith did have clout, and connections within a great many agencies, Interpol included. If he chose to exercise it, I could be about to find myself back at the bottom of the pile, stuck in the office, translating conversations between Ukrainian civil servants. Assuming I still had a job left to go back to… I was only too aware that Whitefield had been gone for a very long time, and was trying to repress the panicky thought, _What the hell's happened to him? _For all we knew, he'd fallen down the cliff outside in the dark…

I thought about Davenport's words earlier. _They say drowning's an awful way to go_… well, fuck it. Having a career isn't the only important thing in the world. I met Smith's eyes with all the force I could muster, and prepared to go down fighting…

"It's not _my_ last word," rumbled a deep voice from somewhere behind my left shoulder. How the hell did someone that big move that quietly? Goren rematerialised from wherever he'd been hiding, and stood by my side. Which made me look extremely small, but I appreciated the support. Smith switched his glower from me to Goren, who ignored it completely.

"When Davenport and I came on this operation," (out of the corner of my eye I saw Davenport suddenly look very alert) "we agreed to do so… with Interpol in charge. I _never_ agreed to take orders from the CIA."

"Maybe not," Smith conceded. "But that doesn't alter my point. I'm responsible for this listening post, and the most senior person here. We're not risking it."

"No… _you're_ not risking it. _We_ can." Goren and Smith had locked eyes, and I sensed that they had taken an powerful dislike to each other. It was more than just this disagreement; I sensed somehow that each instinctively hated the other's whole approach to the situation. This was not going well.

"Do you _know_ how valuable some of the intelligence we get from here is?" Smith asked, urgently. "We could be risking more lives than there are in that liferaft. We're not doing it."

"We could be… if we couldn't hide the fact that it's a listening post. But we can, and we should."

"You have no idea what you're involved with," Smith spat, openly revealing the contempt I'd sensed from him before for all of us. I'd seen it in the meeting earlier, the way he'd looked at us… I'd seen it before. Not all the CIA were like him by any means, but he was one of the worst of a certain type they seemed to attract, the ones who believed that they, and they alone, should be trusted with intelligence and the right to make decisions based on it. The ones who liked being above the law.

Goren glowered at Smith with such force that I took a step away from him. They'd both drawn themselves up to their full height and tensed their muscles, each instinctively trying to make himself look bigger. Goren was winning that contest, hands down, but I guessed that Smith was not defeated, not by a long shot. Goren bellowed at Smith, and if he'd used that tone of voice to me at that volume I'd have dropped dead on the spot.

"_You_ have no idea what you're talking about. Shorokogat is dead, this whole operation's a bust… Your job may not involve protecting the innocent. Mine does. You are stopping me from doing it. _Now get out of the way_."

Smith's face darkened, and I could see his hand twitching, as if he were restraining himself from reaching for his gun. This could be about to get very, very ugly, and I could see that Davenport thought so too, he'd got to his feet and was hovering, watching both of them carefully. And at that point, Whitefield stomped back into the room, dripping water everywhere but otherwise apparently unharmed. I'd never been so glad to see someone in my life. (I found out later from him that he'd been stuck in the Jeep all this time, unable to get out and risk crossing back to us until the gusts of wind died down.)

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!" Whitefield yelled so loudly that all five of us jumped and turned round. He'd been an Army sergeant in a former career, and still had the voice of command when he chose to use it. He advanced into the room, scowling and shaking his head to get the water off. He planted himself between Goren & Smith, glaring at all of us. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or petrified.

"Detective Goren is being…" Smith began.

"Shut up, I didn't ask your opinion, and _I _get to decide who does the talking," Whitefield declared, with such force that Smith shut up and took a step back. Goren opened his mouth… "I didn't ask _your_ opinion either. Ms Tovitz, _what is going on here_?"

This was it. Keeping my voice as calm as I could (no mean feat), I swiftly summarised everything, from us picking up the Coast Guard's transmissions, to the liferaft outside, to Davenport's to the debate between myself, Goren & Smith. I did my best to present my argument that we could carry out a rescue without blowing our cover if we were careful, then fell silent and hoped very hard. You could have heard a pin drop as we stared at Whitefield, who thought very fast. Then he looked up, face determined.

"I agree with you and Goren." I felt rather than saw Smith stiffen. Whitefield glowered at him again. "Mr Smith. You are going to stay here, secure the surveillance equipment and stand guard over it. I don't want you to move from this building, I don't want you to do anything except ensure that no-one who isn't one of us gets anywhere near it, or even suspect it exists. If you screw up, I will see to it that you spend the rest of what passes for your career in Iraq reviewing the intelligence received from camel drivers that Bin Laden is in hiding in the desert there, and checking it out in person."

He dismissed Smith and turned to the rest of us. "Right. I'm going to go and raise help from the base." He forestalled any comment by adding "No-one else has the authority to ask for more troops and equipment and we're going to need it; there's not enough room in the Jeeps to transport more than a few people. I'll take a radio and a Jeep and drive back down the road in case they need to speak to me in person to authorise releasing the resources. I was beginning to get a signal earlier; the storm is dying down so you should be able to contact me once you have some idea of how many there are. Timkowski, Davenport, you're going to help Detective Goren and Ms Tovitz. Timkowski, you've been here before, you show them the way down to the beach… everyone, try not to break any legs, we don't need more casualties. Goren, you're in charge since you seem so determined to do this."

For a very brief second, I would have sworn I saw a brief _Huh? _expression cross Goren's face. Only for a second, then his face became resolute. I tried frantically to remember the First Aid course I'd done a year ago, and suddenly realised the difficulty of the task ahead of us, and how pitifully inadequate we were probably going to be for it. But we were the only ones who could do anything.

"Anyone got any questions?" Whitefield asked, slowly making eye contact with all of us. "No? Everyone knows what they're doing?" We nodded, including Smith, whose expression had gone back to being unreadable. I sensed that he was slightly mollified by Whitefield's leaving him in charge of the building and the equipment, but made a mental note to avoid antagonising him further.

"Good. Keep in touch with me, I'm going to set off now." Whitefield turned.

"Wait," Goren forestalled him. "We need… we're going to need the First Aid kits from the Jeeps."

"There's another one in the building… I'll go get it," Timkowski volunteered. We all looked at each other, and then, as one, at Goren, who took a deep breath.

"Yes. You get that one, the three of us will get the kits from the Jeeps, then we'll go down together and see what we can do. Let's get moving."

As I ran out into the howling storm and made it over to the Jeeps behind Goren, Timkowski & Davenport, I could hear the thumps from inside of Smith beginning to dismantle and store away the surveillance gear. Behind us, Whitefield roared off in the second Jeep, leaving behind its First Aid kit plus some bottles of water and food bars we'd found inside. The four of us split up the supplies between us, shoving them into our fatigues jacket pockets and strapping on the First Aid kits, which thankfully were designed to be carried with straps slung across the body, leaving our arms and legs free. We looked at each other, and then at Goren, who showed no signs of fear or worry. I envied him his equilibrium, and felt very young, very inexperienced, and very far out of my depth.

We looked out over the cliff. In front of us, the wet, slippery, path down stretched out, not so much a clear footpath as the least steep and jagged parts of a maze of rocks that led down to the beach below. I squinted out, just managing to make out the faint lights of the liferaft far below. I pictured trying to guide injured people up the treacherous rock, and then forced myself not to. We could solve that problem nearer the time.

"Everyone ready?" Goren asked, yelling to make himself heard over the howling wind and rain. Thankfully, the thunder and lightening seemed to have stopped for now.

We nodded. "Timkowski, you know the way?"

The CIA man nodded, shivering slightly. We were already drenched through and cold.

"Then let's go."

I shouldered my First Aid kit and followed Goren's back down the path, nearly spraining my ankle on a rock that turned under my foot. In front of me, the path stretched out and down. Black, slippery, and shadowy in the eerie stormlight. I took another deep breath, and hoped very, very hard that I could make it through the next few hours.


	7. Knight in Grubby Fatigues

As he picked his way cautiously down the rocky path towards the beach below, several thoughts raced through Bobby Goren's head, not the least of which was _How exactly did this happen, again?_ He tried to push that to one side; it was useless, he had to focus on the task in hand, and in particular on getting down to the beach without injuring himself. The path was just about passable if you were reasonably fit and agile, but anyone in shock or with serious injuries would need to be carried up… as he clambered down, he was busy cataloguing the path, watching out for particularly dangerous bits and flatter areas where they could let the survivors rest on the way up, assuming there were any. There was a large flat area, a clearing in the midst of a large semi-circle of rocks that was quite sheltered; it would do as a refuge for anyone who couldn't make it all the way up. The storm, mercifully, had died down for now. The rain had ceased, but a chilly wind was still blowing, it was much darker than it should be even for early evening, and he suspected that soon the storm would hit again, and at that point they'd want to be off the beach in case the path flooded. That could turn very nasty indeed.

At the same time as these thoughts ran through his head, part of him was enjoying the sheer freedom to _move_, not to have to rein himself in, keep himself under control all the time. The past ten hours had been a struggle, and a salutary reminder of how much he had come to depend on Alex Eames to interface with the rest of the world for him. It seemed as though they'd been together longer than a mere nine months, and now she was no longer there, he was suddenly having to watch the people around him again, take note of how they reacted to him all the time, instead of relying on Eames to pick up when he was weirding other people out unintentionally, to pull him up when he was going too far, to clarify his thoughts with her own insights… they'd been together less than a year, but that was a long time in their line of work, and at first, on this operation, he'd felt as though he was missing his right hand. He'd caught himself looking around, thinking _Where's Eames?_ and then remembering…

That feeling had gone slightly, he'd gotten used to temporarily not being one half of Goren-and-Eames (Major Case), but it had been a valuable lesson to him, and later he'd have to think about whether he should do anything about that, whether it was worth the risk of one day having to readjust to life without her for the benefits of their partnership at this moment in time, of finally having someone with whom he could just be himself, all the time, without having to watch his every thought. Not for the first time, he sincerely wished Alex Eames was here by his side.

As he started down the final part of the rocky path, going down it in more of a controlled fall than a climb down, he could see two bright heads, one red, one blond, ahead of him, and if he looked carefully he could see Timkowski in between him and the two of them. They'd started out with Timkowski trying to guide them down the path, but Davenport and Tovitz were lighter and more agile than he or the CIA man, and they'd gone on ahead, jumping down the path in a way that would have probably gotten him a broken leg. He'd thought of yelling at them to come back, but realised that wouldn't be a good idea.

This was going to be a challenge. None of them had signed up for a rescue effort when they'd come on this surveillance operation. In theory, of course, as Tim Whitefield had put him in charge, they should do what he said. In practice, they didn't know him, he didn't know them, they were all from different organisations, different cultures, and he'd have to lead them, persuade them that he knew best, that they should follow him. He took a deep breath and wriggled his shoulders slightly, feeling the different way the fatigues fitted him, the weight of the boots, the absence of anything round his neck. He was glad, now, that they were all in fatigues, and not only because it meant that they were at least dressed appropriately for wading into chilly seawater and hauling people up a steep and rocky path. Right now, Detective Robert Goren, NYPD Major Case AKA 'That whackjob who gets results' (one of these days he WOULD track down the person he'd overheard saying that in the men's room at One Police Plaza and make their life hell as only a policeman knows how) could do nothing useful. Bobby Goren, NYPD and ex-soldier, could do a great deal, and he was glad not to be in his usual suit and tie, glad to be able to slip into another skin.

Ahead of him, he could see the beach opening out. As he'd been climbing down, he'd noted two rocks scattered near the tidemark, one nearer the sea than the other, and watched to see if they were covered by the sea. The sea was now up to the second rock, having covered the first one five minutes ago, so the tide was definitely coming in, and about ten minutes' swim out from the shore he could now see the liferaft. If he strained, he could just about hear yells and shouts. The people within had spotted Tovitz and Davenport on the beach, their pale fatigues standing out against the dark rock. Well, that answered the question of whether there were any survivors, and Bobby Goren stamped firmly on the rogue thought that that would show Daniel Smith who'd been right about whether they should go down and try to rescue anyone. He then tried to ignore the more worrying thought that they'd have to send someone up there with the survivors; his instincts were against leaving the senior CIA man alone with them, given his reluctance to allow the listening post to be used as a temporary shelter… one more problem to solve, in a long list of them.

He joined the three of them, deliberately pulling himself up to his full height of six foot five, using every trick he could think of to make himself look bigger, to dominate the group. He did a quick survey of them, and was somewhat reassured. They looked worried, but none of them looked panicky or, worse, rebellious. He'd been half afraid Sienna Tovitz would resent Whitefield's not putting her in charge – it had been her idea, after all – but she was obviously smart enough to realise that he had better training and experience for this kind of thing, and quite possibly also smart enough to realise that if this all went belly-up, his career was considerably more likely to survive any fallout than hers would be. She was looking at him expectantly, waiting to be told what to do, her eyes straying out at the liferaft. He guessed from her air of concentration that she was straining to hear the survivors' cries, trying to work out if they were in English… smart girl. Woman, he corrected himself.

He glanced over the two men. Timkowski, a natural born follower, had the same air of expectation, but mixed with more worry and a large helping of 'I didn't sign up for this'. He could ignore that as long as Timkowski did what he was told. Davenport's expression, unsurprisingly, said very clearly, _Well, you talked yourself into this, and now what?_ He guessed that Davenport was one of those people who could never be ordered to do things, but who would do what you asked as long they agreed that it was the smart thing to do. Something of a kindred spirit, perhaps…

"Right, this is how we'll do this," he started, deliberately dropping his voice as deep as it would go without sounding obviously fake and slowing down to avoid stammering and hesitating. "We don't know what condition they're in or how many there are, and that path's going to be difficult to get them up, so we'll need to run some sort of triage when we get them out to see if we'll need to take them up in two trips. I'll do that; Davenport, you and Timkowski need to go in and pull the raft to us; we've probably not got long before the tide comes in completely and we don't know when the storm's going to blow up again…" He sensed that Davenport wanted to speak; considered briefly whether that was a good idea, then decided that pulling rank would be the wrong way to handle this. He paused. Davenport raised a hand, looked him in the eyes and said, very calmly, "I would suggest that I should be the one to run triage. I'm not as strong as you, and I do have the training; I kept up my first aid qualifications after I left the force, plus my job title is intelligence analyst – I can make those kinds of decisions."

Goren paused, weighing up the decision, and watched carefully. He was gratified to see that they were all watching him, waiting on his decision… yes, he could do this. He nodded, twice. "Okay, I agree; I'll go in with Timkowski."

"What about me?" Sienna asked – he kept thinking of her as Sienna, remembering her anecdote from the Jeep about how she got her name, and now was _not_ the time to be remembering that…

"We'll need you to translate if any of them don't speak English, assuming they speak any of your languages… plus I want you to count heads, get names if you can, and help Davenport." She nodded resolutely. He turned to face the chilly sea, and the wind hit him slap in the face. The liferaft was much nearer now, and he could see the dark shapes of rocks under the water, they'd need to watch those. He handed the First Aid supplies he was carrying to Davenport, who was rooting through them, probably looking for latex gloves, then shrugged out of his fatigues jacket, willing himself not to wince as the cold air hit him through the thin black T-shirt he was wearing underneath. He handed it to Sienna, who looked at it with puzzlement.

"Put it on. You're the smallest of all of us; can't risk you getting hypothermia… plus, I'll need something dry to put on when we try making it back up the path."

She pulled it on over her own fatigues with no further argument; it was big enough that it fitted over her own jacket with little difficulty. He turned back towards the sea, and noticed with some amusement that she was actually checking him out, her eyes flitting from his shoulders to his chest and waist… well, human instincts tend to be strong in survival situations, and you don't get much more instinctive than that. What was it Eames had said to him a while ago? "Women perve, too, you know…" Heh, well, she was probably not even aware she was doing it.

He turned to look at Timkowski, whose expression said only too clearly: _I am not taking off my jacket under any circumstances known to mankind, thank you_. Well, it was his choice… Goren took a deep breath, flexed his shoulders and lunged forwards into a run, throwing himself into the water. It was cold and hit him like a blow to the groin and with much the same effect. His momentum carried him forwards; behind him he could hear Timkowski cursing and gasping. They ploughed forwards together towards the raft, guided by the cries of the people on it as much as the bright orange shape against the louring sky.

Suddenly, something wet and cold hit him in the face. A rope. He looked up to see someone half-standing inside the raft checking it was secured. He yelled for Timkowski, kicking out frantically to keep his balance and hanging on to the rope for grim life. Together they pulled at the raft, ploughing forwards through the chilly water. It was a long time since he'd confronted a problem that required only brute strength and determination to solve it, but he would not stop, even as the water dragged at both of them. The shore was nearly in sight now, waves breaking over the rocks in front of them. He regained his balance and thanked God for the heavy Army-issue boots that were protecting his feet as he and Timkowski heaved on the rope, fighting the lash of the waves that tugged at the raft.

Suddenly, there was a loud splash as someone else ran into the water and began to help out the people within it. He looked up to see Sienna Tovitz standing up to her knees in the water, fluently switching between English, German, French, Russian and a few other languages he couldn't quite make out, variations on the same message: "Hello, we are US Army, we're here to help you, go over to my friend, is anyone injured, are any of the flight crew with you, how many on board?" She repeated it over and over, not fazed by the frantic cries within or the yells for help, murmuring placatory messages to anyone who addressed her in their own language if she knew it. Behind him, he heard Davenport beginning to check over the passengers, asking them much the same questions but including "Where does it hurt?" in the list. Most seemed able to walk… well, he thought grimly, any who had been badly injured in the crash had most probably not made it out of the aircraft. He tried to keep count, but it was too difficult to do so and hold on to the rope at the same time. Sienna was switching between English and French now, leaving out the other languages - a flight to or from Canada, perhaps, maybe Quebec? Nearly all the passengers were out of the raft now; two had had to be carried out by Sienna and Timkowski, but they had both been conscious, albeit moaning with pain, probably from injured arms or legs.

Suddenly, a frightened wail rose out of the raft. He looked up to see Sienna trying frantically to reason with a terrified-looking Asian woman in long robes who looked to be at least seven months pregnant. She had a small boy of about seven or eight hanging on to her with wide-eyed terror. Apparently the woman didn't speak English, and Sienna did not speak any Arabic. He splashed over to them, ignoring Timkowski's yell of "Hey, I don't think I can hold this much longer!" Davenport had joined them in the water; to Goren's urgent look, he replied: "Two of the flight crew were on that raft and they've both got First Aid training, I've left them in charge. No serious injuries; one broken arm, one broken leg, a lot of cuts and bruises, and they're all in various stages of shock and probably incipient hypothermia; we need to go NOW." They waded over to where Sienna was still trying to calm the woman down; her child was mute, obviously petrified.

"What's the problem?" he asked Sienna, urgently.

"She's pregnant and I think she might be bleeding," Sienna replied, looking stressed. "I can't tell without looking where from." She indicated a large stain on the woman's skirt; he could not tell whether it was from another injury or whether it was related to her pregnancy. He tried carefully reaching in to offer to carry her out of the raft, but had to withdraw as she shrank back from him, pointing at the insignia on Sienna's fatigues and wailing.

"Doesn't like the US Army much, does she?" he heard Davenport muttering softly. Goren turned and yelled for Timkowski. Together they dragged the raft onto the shore. The woman, still inside, was still crying, and he recognised the sounds of fear.

"Half the world runs when it sees what we're wearing…" Davenport murmured. Goren thought of several possible responses, and settled for "Well, the other half is grateful."

"Can we please save the comparative foreign policy debate for another time?" Sienna snapped at both of them. She had a point. The child was staring up at him. Suddenly, he had an idea, and slipped his hand into his pants pocket, finding a couple of small plastic-wrapped chocolate candy bars he'd swiped from the Jeep. They seemed to have survived the soaking intact, and he tucked one into the palm of his hand. He crouched down besides the raft, deliberately turning his body at an angle and relaxing his shoulders to try and look smaller. Wearing his friendliest smile, he reached out both hands, very slowly, towards the child, palms up so that one of the bars was showing. As the boy reached out for it, he moved one hand across the other, juggling the bar between them, then closing his hands into fists and holding them out. The woman was watching him intently now, he could hear her ragged breathing.

The boy seemed to recognise the game, and reached out to confidently tap one fist. Goren turned it over and opened his hand, which was empty. The boy then swiftly tapped the other hand. He pulled a face, then turned over the hand to show that it was empty too. The boy stared in confusion and disgruntlement at him. Very, very slowly, he reached his hand out to the boy's ear, then, with an expression of surprise, drew back his hand to reveal the candy, apparently from thin air. Beside him, he caught a glimpse of Sienna smiling and Davenport raising an amused eyebrow. The boy snatched the bar and unwrapped it. The woman was regarding them cautiously, but without the same amount of fear.

The boy finished devouring the chocolate, then looked up and said "Thank you very much," in perfect English. Goren gave a snort of surprise. "You're welcome… what's your name? I'm Bobby and this is Sienna and Andrew."

"My name is Khamal," the boy informed him with dignity, "and this is my mommy."

"What's her name?"

"Mrs Desai to you I think," the boy said, gravely.

"I see. Can you ask her if her leg hurts?"

The boy regarded him thoughtfully, then turned and spoke to his mother. They conversed for a short while, then Khamal turned back to Goren. "She says her leg hurts because she was eating dinner when the plane went down and the knife slipped. She says it hurts a lot but I'm not to worry." The boy looked as though he doubted this last bit.

"Will she let my friend examine it?"

Another conversation, then: "She says she'll let the lady look at it."

Okay. He looked across to see Sienna already crouching down beside Mrs Desai. Davenport was kneeling behind her, obviously prepared to guide her through it. He hated to interrupt, but he could see storm clouds building up on the horizon again and it was getting ominously dark and cold.

"Sienna, did you get a headcount?" he asked softly.

"I think maybe fifteen or so? Sorry, I lost track" she replied, intent on tying bandages around the white plastic spike protruding an inch from Mrs Desai's upper leg. He looked away. Davenport contributed: "The stewardess says there were twenty people on that flight."

"There were. I counted them," piped up Khamal, who was licking chocolate off his fingers. "I counted them twice, them Mommy told me to sit down and stop bothering everyone."

An idea occurred. "Did you count people on the liferaft as well?"

"Yes I did. I counted fourteen people."

"Are you sure about that? Did you include yourself and your mommy?" he asked as nicely as possible.

Khamal gave him the _adults-are-so-stupid_ look that all children perfect at a young age. "Yes I _am_ sure. There were fourteen. _Of course _I included me and Mommy. I counted _three times_."

Goren left them for a while and went over to count the shivering group of passengers, ignoring Timkowski's plaintive look of _can we PLEASE get back into the warmth_? Twelve heads, so, including Khamal and his mother, that left six people who might be at the bottom of the sea, or who just might be floating towards them wearing lifejackets…. He looked out at the sea, and cursed urgently. It was already getting dark, too dark to see clearly, and as he strained his eyes looking for floating shapes in the sea, he heard a faint, ominous rumble. He reached a decision.

"Timkowski, take everyone who can walk back up to the building. If anyone feels tired, wait for a while but don't let them go to sleep; get them up there as fast as you can." He looked for the woman with a broken leg, and found two male passengers to carry her up; Davenport had splinted it as best he could using driftwood and bandages. Several of the passengers were sporting bandages from cuts on the rocks, and they were all shivering and moaning. "Timkowski, get going now!" He could hear the shake in his own voice; he was freezing cold and it occurred to him to worry about getting hypothermia himself. _If I pass out here they'll never get _me _up that path_… He hurried back to Davenport and Sienna, who was supporting Mrs Desai out of the raft. Sienna was obviously stronger than she looked as she wrapped an arm around the woman's waist, supporting her weight and helping her to walk.

"Uh, Sienna? Can you give me my jacket?" Davenport reached out and very carefully supported the two women as Sienna wriggled awkwardly out of Goren's jacket. He swiftly shed his soaked T-shirt, shivering as the wind hit his bare skin, and grabbed rather than took the jacket from Sienna's outstretched hands. It was blissfully warm and smelled pleasantly female, rather than of salt water and grit. He was vaguely aware of several eyes on him, but now was not the time to be shy… he dived back into the jacket, relishing the warmth and fastening it up swiftly.

"Davenport, go with the passengers. Sienna and I will bring up the rear."

"What are we going to do about anyone else?" Davenport asked quietly. They all looked at the sky, as the first big drops of rain fell across their faces and a distant crack of lightening illuminated the scene. Timkowski's group was already halfway up to the clearing, making good progress… he could faintly hear the CIA man yelling "Hot drinks, step this way, ladies and gentlemen! Hot drinks and warmth, now please keep going…" They rounded the first set of rocks and were hidden from view.

Goren shook his head. He hated what he was about to say, but there was no other choice. "We come back later if we can, but if we don't go now it could be us needing rescuing." Sienna's face became stricken, but she didn't argue. Davenport turned, picked up his First Aid kit and sprinted over the beach to begin scrambling up the path. Goren turned to see Khamal staring up at him. The kid was small for his age, and obviously on the verge of tears… it would make more sense for Goren to carry Khamal's mother, but given her obvious religious beliefs she was unlikely to accept that. Luckily Sienna didn't seem at all tired, and he could help her if he had to. He dropped to his haunches besides Khamal, who got the idea and jumped on, piggyback. Goren stood up; he'd never have risked doing this back in the city, but this wasn't even remotely like a normal situation. The kid hung on with both legs and both arms. Luckily, he barely weighed anything; Goren's biggest challenge would be making it up the path without slipping or knocking them both against a rock on the more narrow sections. He looked at Sienna and Mrs Desai, who was still conscious, and gave them both his most reassuring smile. Sienna grinned back; the other woman tried a nervous smile through her obvious pain. Together they set off, staggering back up the rocks and away from the beach, towards warmth and safety.

Author's Note: 

To answer a question by email: The 'smuggling horses' story Goren told earlier isn't original. It exists in several forms. I first encountered it in Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Miles Vorkosigan' sci-fi series (can't remember which book), and thought it fitted here. I actually suspect Bobby might be something of a fan of Bujold's work himself if he ever reads for pleasure, so I justify including it that way. He and Miles Vorkosigan have a lot in common, both being hyperactive misunderstood knight-errant geniuses, with a tendency to leap on their white horses and ride to the rescue of damsels in distress. (If you haven't discovered Miles yet, get down the local library now. Seriously.)

Anyway, I should also add, this is _not_ the end. Let's just say that a certain reviewer, whose name is X-Pig, got it right in her review of chapter 4…


	8. Dead in the Water

**Author's note**: Lyrics to 'Dead from the Waist Down' are copyrighted by the British band Catatonia. I don't own them.

As I staggered in through the doorway with an unconscious pregnant woman in my arms and Goren supporting me, I made a swift vow never, ever to take being warm and being able to walk freely for granted again. Mercifully, one of the two air hostesses who'd been on the liferaft happened to be standing by the door at the time. She rushed forwards and helped me to carefully put Mrs Desai down onto a makeshift bed that Davenport had obviously prepared in advance. He dashed across and the two of us knelt down beside the unconscious woman, Davenport guiding my hands as I examined her and put her in the recovery position as best I could, mindful that her religious beliefs prevented us from letting Davenport or Goren examine her directly unless things became extremely serious.

Happily, the bandages I'd wrapped round her injured leg had held, and a few minutes later she was stirring, reviving in the warmth, murmuring words in her own language and calling out "Khamal? Khamal!". Her son darted past me and hugged her tightly. Davenport sighed with relief, and moved away to start checking over everyone else. I was vaguely aware of Goren organising the passengers who weren't too badly hurt into setting up a refreshments table using some old emergency supplies we'd found in a cupboard in the building. Which seemed odd, then I realised that it was a good idea to give them something to do. Plus, warm drinks and food were definitely a good idea. I joined Goren & Davenport for a brief discussion of what we were going to do now. Goren was saying something about "I'm going to be "WABV" – ah, Sienna, I want you to go round with Davenport & translate if he needs you to. Get names if you can, and both of you remember, we're officially US Army, so don't get drawn into talking about yourselves."

"Where's Timkowski?" I asked.

"Over with Smith, trying to get hold of Whitefield by radio," Davenport replied. I suddenly noticed that his accent seemed to have moved five thousand miles west to the East Coast, rather than his native England. Interesting. I trotted after him, taking a pen and paper from Goren. As we did our rounds, smiling and nodding, taking names and trying not to talk too much as people thanked us, I reflected on our journey back up the path…

Goren and I had been only a few minutes away from the surveillance building and shelter when Mrs Desai passed out completely, and we'd been extremely lucky that she'd fallen against me instead of away from me and pulling the two of us over onto the rocks. We'd also been lucky that her son had insisted on hopping down from Goren's back and running ahead of us to the building. Goren had told me to put my arms around her shoulders and knees, as if trying to pick her up and carry her. As I'd been debating whether to mention that there was no way I was that strong, he suddenly moved behind me and wrapped his arms around mine, so that we were picking her up together, but without him actually touching her. Together, we staggered up to the building, managing to move in tandem and not fall over, despite the rather large difference in our heights.

I'd been relieved to be able to put her down once we were inside, and as the next hour or so passed in a blur of activity, I managed to stifle the thought that I rather missed having Goren's arms wrapped around me. We reassured nervous passengers, handed out drinks, tied on bandages, compiled a roll call of names, got the names of the missing passengers, muttered soothing comments to the injured ones and generally tried to be in three places at once, whilst Smith lurked in the corner and Timkowski sat by the radio waiting to hear from Whitefield. As Davenport said after we'd gone round everyone the second time, there was little we could really do until Whitefield and hopefully some nice, thoroughly well-equipped US Army medics arrived to give everyone proper treatment, but by getting them all out of the cold and wet we'd probably saved their lives.

I was trying to feel heroic about this, and reflecting that it would be easier to do if I wasn't also hungry and clad in damp fatigues. At least the building was warm. Goren seemed to be everywhere at once, talking, smiling, reassuring, being every inch the paternal, authoritative cop-in-charge-of-the-situation. I suddenly wondered what he'd meant earlier when I'd overheard him and Davenport talking. I caught hold of Davenport's sleeve. "Can I ask you a question?"

"By all means."

"What's 'WABV'?"

He frowned. "Well, if American cop slang is the same as British, it stands for 'Wandering Around Being Visible'. People feel reassured if they can see that someone's in charge, and that's often half the battle in keeping people calm and not panicky." We both looked across to where Goren was now standing in the line for hot drinks, chatting to people in the queue, the very definition of 'reassuring authority'. He was nearly a foot taller than the man he was talking to. I thought idly that he must go through life finding that the rest of the world was one size too small. "Of course," Davenport went on, "some of us are better equipped than others to be visible… heh. Y'know, when I was in the force we called it 'PABV'."

I had to ask. "Which stands for…?"

"'Pissing Around Being Visible'," Davenport grinned, slipping back into his natural accent for a few seconds. "One of many, many reasons I stopped being a copper."

I grinned myself. "It's an impressive accent you have there."

"I do try. A US soldier with an English accent might raise a few eyebrows… anyway, if you'll excuse me, I need to do the rounds again and check on that broken leg. Take a break yourself, drink some tea or something." 

Not bad advice. I was starving and anything to fill my stomach and take the edge off my hunger would be welcome. I walked across to join Goren by the makeshift refreshments table. He was collecting a drink from the woman behind the counter. I didn't hear what he said, but she smiled and did the dropping-the-head-and-looking-up-alluringly-through-one's-eyelashes look that women traditionally do when a guy says something flirtatious. He smiled broadly, and I was struck by a wave of quite irrational annoyance and a strong urge to shout "Hey! Hands off!" 

It didn't help that she was clad in a smart white shirt and dark skirt combination – she'd probably frozen in the liferaft and on the way up to the building, and I _shouldn't_ have been thinking 'Good' – whilst I was still stuck in the baggy, shapeless fatigues I'd been wearing all day. I hauled ass over there and snagged a drink from the table, the fatigues serving some useful purpose at least in allowing me to jump the queue. I padded across to join Goren, who was now leaning on the wall beside the table and looking tired, and somehow vulnerable and in need of comfort, and damn it, _why_ couldn't I think like a rational human being around this man? I tried to think of something intelligent to say, and could only come up with "Are you hungry too?"

He nodded and finished his drink. "Yeah, but I think we're out of food – most of it's gone to the passengers."

I slumped moodily against the wall beside him and sipped lukewarm tea. "Great. Oh well, it's a good cause…" My stomach rumbled embarrassingly; I blushed as Goren smiled. Suddenly, he turned towards me and made eye contact, looking at me with a curious expression. My heart sped up as his hand reached out towards my cheek. I had no idea what he was about to do, but I was having to suddenly fight the urge to rub against it… he reached behind my ear, then produced a chocolate bar with a small flourish, repeating the trick he'd used to impress little Khamal Desai. I took the bar from his hand with sincere gratitude; I really needed sugar and comforting carbohydrates right now.

"Oh, I could kiss you," I said gratefully, and immediately felt as though I now had a huge red flashing sign over my head blaring "FREUDIAN SLIP, FREUDIAN SLIP". Goren looked at me for a second with the oddest expression, then a loud yell from Timkowski called him away. I stared after his retreating back view and wished I wasn't blushing quite so violently. I then had a short and intense conversation with myself inside my head, which I can best transcribe as follows:

Me: Why am I acting like this? He's a man. I work with them all the time.

My subconscious: _Well, let's see. He's tall, dark, handsome and charming, incredibly intelligent, nice to kids, defended you without being patronising, obviously thought the whole German translation thing in the meeting was funny, not dumb, oh, and you've been concentrating on your career so hard these past few months that you haven't gotten laid since God knows when. Oh. Did I mention the 'tall, dark, handsome and charming' thing?_

Me: Yes. Isn't he supposed to act like a complete fruitcake sometimes? He's got a reputation for being weird… I'm probably just reading the whole thing wrong.

_That's probably just what lesser minds who don't understand what he's doing say about him, to make themselves feel better about the fact that he gets results when no-one else can. He can obviously act like a normal person when he needs to. And let's face it, you wouldn't care about the weird if you COULD actually kiss him. _

Me: This isn't helping me stay professional.

_Because you're in denial. Sing it with me: "Bobby Goren is hot, Bobby Goren is hot, I'd like to…"_

Me: Okay, okay! No more denial. Now what?

_Think of it as a chance to practise the professional skill of working with someone you have the hots for. Move beyond denial to acceptance. Just accept you're feeling this way, smile at him when he speaks to you, get on with it instead of worrying about being professional, and sneak the occasional lustful glance at him when he's not looking.   
_  
Me: Yeah, well, if it's anything like the professional skill of staying focussed in meetings, this is going to take a while to master. And how is that last bit supposed to help me do this?

_It's not. I'm just being realistic. _

My musings were interrupted by the man himself, calling the five of us together. I scurried over to join the others by Timkowski's chair. Goren was holding the radio.

"That was Whitefield. He's on his way here; got halfway down the road and managed to get a radio signal, and got through to the base. They were sending people up here anyway – the Coast Guard got through to them. All the available planes and choppers are being used on rescues elsewhere, so they're sending medical personnel and supplies in Humvees. The storm caused a huge amount of flooding and damage elsewhere in the area, plus I suspect they didn't think they stood much of a chance of saving anyone here. Whitefield says they're making good time – driving even faster than Ms Tovitz here." I blushed. "They can see the building already; should be here in about twenty minutes to half an hour." He paused and looked round at us. "That means that now is the best time to go back down to the beach and check for any more survivors."

Our faces fell. I glanced at the window, not relishing the thought of venturing out into the dark and cold again. I could see his point, though. The storm was definitely dying down now, and whilst night was beginning to fall, we'd still have maybe an hour's light left, although we'd need to take flashlights to be on the safe side. I shivered at the thought of the treacherous path down the cliff. Then I reminded myself what it would feel like to be washed ashore onto the rocky beach, soaking wet and having survived a plane crash, probably having spent hours wondering if I was about to die, and told myself to stop being a wuss.

Davenport spoke up. "One of us with medical training needs to stay here until Whitefield gets here – I'd suggest it should be me." Goren nodded, then paused, thinking out loud. "I'd prefer if we could go down as a four – search in pairs, avoid the risk of one of us getting split up from the others."

Smith surprised us all. "I'll come – Timkowski and I can search together." He attempted a conciliatory expression which didn't quite come off, but I supposed at least he was making an effort. Davenport looked sceptical at this, but replied calmly, "Okay, in that case, why don't you guys take the spare radio and call me if you find anyone who needs treatment? I can come down and help out once Whitefield gets here, they won't need me if they've got real medics… Tell you what, as soon as they get here I'll bring a medic down here, I can guide them down the path in case you find any living ones." 

Goren nodded decisively. "Okay, let's do this before it gets darker."

Once more we kitted ourselves out with the First Aid supplies. Timkowski tucked the radio handset into his jacket, and the four of us headed out and down the darkening path. The storm had abated somewhat, but there were still occasional howls of wind and twigs and branches strewn everywhere. I surprised myself by wishing firmly that Davenport were with us instead of Smith; he, I and Goren made an oddly effective team. Still, at least Smith had shut up about keeping the listening post a secret. He had a calculating expression on his face, but that seemed to be his default setting.

I jogged down beside Timkowski, who was singing to himself in a surprisingly pleasant deep voice. I caught a snatch of the words: "We should be making hay… but we're dead from the waist down, like Califor-na-yay… we're dead from the waist down, we are sleeping on our feet…" He caught my eye and smiled ruefully.

"Not so long before we can go home," I ventured, ever the peacemaker.

"Yeah, well, I said I'd pick my wife up at the airport tomorrow midday, she's coming back from visiting family in England. No way I'll make that now. It's her birthday tomorrow, and she is not gonna be happy."

I grinned and risked a joke. "Is that why you're singing that song?"

He snickered. "Hah! Nah, she's a good shot, I married an ex-cop. I'm gonna be dead from the neck up." He raised his voice. "Goren, you really think we'll find anyone? Is it even worth us going down there?"

Goren paused, and turned round to face us. "I really think we'll always wonder if we could have saved anyone if we don't." He turned round and jogged away, following Smith down the path. Timkowski grimaced, and we kept moving. He was now humming a different tune, and I smiled as I recognised it: "I Fought The Law, And The Law Won".

As I reached the bottom, I found Goren waiting for me. Smith had gone on ahead, and Timkowski scurried off to join him. Goren and I set off walking in the opposite direction. Before long my eye was caught by a bobbing, bright shape in the water. I pointed. "Goren, over there?"

He followed my line of sight, and stilled suddenly. I felt a lurch in the pit of my stomach.

"Stay there." He jogged away from me and splashed into the water

In retrospect, I really should have taken his advice.

I followed him into the water, intending to help out, and one minute later I was wishing I hadn't, as my legs gave way and I nearly fell full length into the sea, Goren just managing to catch me in time.

The shape was actually three shapes. Three people. Three people whose faces were contorted in agony, eyes bulging, limbs askew. Three people who'd escaped the plane, only to miss the liferaft and drown in the sea, in the churning waves that must have swamped them, breaking over their faces again and again until they lost consciousness…. I could feel my vision tunnelling, my hearing going, my legs turning weak… I hung on to Goren's arm for dear life. Suddenly, something bumped against my leg and I screamed raggedly. It was another dead body wearing a lifejacket, floating face-up, the way lifejackets are supposed to do, to keep your nose and mouth above water…

Suddenly, Goren tipped my head up to face his and stared me straight in the eyes. He pointed at the beach. "Go and sit on that rock. Put your head in between your knees and breath slowly and deeply."

I nodded weakly.

"This man's lucky, he's still alive. Unconscious, but alive. His lifejacket saved him. I can help him, but I need you to go and sit down."

I staggered off and sat on the rock as I'd been told, rocking backwards and forwards and trying not to think about what it must have been like for them. I took some deep breaths and tried to be calm, to remind myself that I translated horrible things every so often, conversations between the worst criminals in Europe, and that death was going to be part of my world if I was really serious about getting away from the translation game and into the decision-making side of intelligence work. I repeated over and over in my head: "We saved people. We couldn't have saved them. They weren't in the raft. We did what we could. We saved people." 

From somewhere nearby, Goren yelled. "TIMKOWSKI!" After five minutes, Timkowski appeared from behind some nearby rocks and trudged across to us. I was vaguely aware of Goren telling him about the injured man, and the CIA man dragging him across the beach over to the flat rock near the start of the cliff path, putting him in the recovery position whilst Goren stayed with me. Fifteen minutes later, he'd returned and I could vaguely hear him trying to put a call up to the building. I overheard Timkowksi saying "Huh. That's odd, they're not answering."

"Maybe they're away from the radio for a few minutes… keep trying, they'll hear it eventually." I glanced up to see Goren checking his watch. "They must have arrived by now."

"He said he'd set off as soon as Whitefield got here…"

There was a sudden crackle from the radio. It was Davenport's voice. "Goren, are you guys alright? Why aren't you answering? Anyway, Whitefield's here and I'm coming down there with two medics to look for you guys. See you. Over."

Goren & Timkowski tried several times to get through to him, but with no success. Something was obviously wrong with the radio… Still, Davenport was definitely on his way with help. That should have made me feel better. It didn't. I was vaguely aware of Timkowski saying he'd go find Smith, and trudging off into the gloom, yelling for his colleague. Goren and I stayed sat on the rock for quite some time, his hand still stroking my back. Eventually, I took some deep breaths and felt more steady.

"I'm sorry," I forced myself to say. "You probably think I'm an idiot, some sort of useless female…"

"No. No, I don't think that. Rookie cops throw up and pass out at crime scenes all the time. Nothing prepares you for the sight of a dead body. You're doing well so far."

"You don't seem too bothered."

He snorted. "I see this kind of thing every week." He fell silent and turned away from me. "Where are the other two… we need to be getting back."

I stood up, somewhat unsteadily, and forced myself to stare out across the water. Goren was surveying the beach, looking for Smith and Timkowski, who seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Where the hell were they? We began to walk along the beach towards the start of the path, looking around and occasionally yelling. Goren was looking faintly worried, murmuring under his breath that we needed to go back up to the building soon. Suddenly, something caught my eye and I paused. In the sea in front of us I could see a dark shape, bobbing in the surf. I was determined to prove that I could handle this, if only to myself.

"Hold on, I'll just check this one," I called to Goren, darting past him and splashing into the water, suppressing a scream at the cold. I waded towards the shape, which became clearer as I got nearer and turned out to be a man, floating face down, wearing oddly familiar pale clothing. I grabbed his shoulder and tried to heave him over onto his front, hoping desperately that I'd caught him in time, that he'd just been stunned recently and that if I got his face out of the water he might revive…

…and then I screamed so loudly that Goren covered the distance between us in a few seconds, moving astonishingly quickly for someone his size wading through chilly water.

It was Timkowski, and his throat had been cut.


	9. Hidden Danger

Goren took one look at Timkowski, then grabbed him under the arms and dragged him out of the water and onto dry land in a few mighty strides. I splashed behind, trying not to throw up as I retrieved my flashlight from my jacket pocket and shone it onto Timkowski so that Goren could see his injuries better, long fingers expertly probing Timkowski's throat and face, checking for a pulse on the uninjured side of his neck, then darting upwards to examine his head.

"His injuries aren't fatal… no major blood vessels severed… but he's been stunned," Goren announced abruptly after a few seconds. "He's got a good chance if we try resuss now. You do compressions." I swiftly dropped to my knees beside Timkowski's chest; Goren had already clamped his mouth over Timkowski's, and efficiently blown twice. I could see Timkowski's ribs rise and fall in front of me, and just off to the side, something winked. I stared at it, and, without thinking, reached for the flashlight.

"You need to do the compressions now." Goren's voice was urgent.

"Hold on. What's this?" I found where I'd propped the flashlight on a rock, and shone it at Timkowski's body, at the junction of arm and chest where I'd seen the brief wink of light as Timkowski's chest moved. Glinting evilly up at me was a one-inch section of knife blade. The rest was buried in his armpit, the dark knife handle almost hidden in the folds of his fatigues. I would have screamed, but I was now a long way past being shocked and heading fast towards numb panic.

Goren quickly examined the wound, and swore. "Hold off on the compressions – it's blocking the cut now, but if we jostle him, it might start bleeding, sever the brachial artery." We looked at each other for a brief moment of mutual _what do we do now_? confusion, then Timkowski resolved the problem for us by reviving enough to turn his head and throw up half a gallon of seawater, narrowly missing my boots. He coughed and spluttered; Goren held his shoulders, trying to keep him as still as possible. I tried to reassure him. "You're okay, you're okay, we found you, try not to move, you have a bad cut to your neck and your arm is injured." He was trying to paw at his face, I held down his injured arm. He stared at us with pain-crazed eyes, then lay back on the rock, groaning softly and holding his good hand to the gaping cut on his lower jaw. Whilst we watched, he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Goren quickly held a hand over his mouth to check for breathing, but we could both see his chest rise and fall. "He's out cold… pain, loss of blood...he's going into shock."

I risked a quick feel round the edges of the wound, my smaller fingers managing to get in between the knife and Timkowski's body. "I don't feel anything gushing out, just a little blood."

"What the fuck happened here?"

I jumped about a foot in the air, and Goren was also startled; we looked up as one to see Smith staring down at us and his fallen colleague with a frozen, horrified expression. Instinctively, his hand had gone to his waist, and as I watched he drew his gun, predator's eyes glancing around us. 

Goren filled him in quickly. "Ms Tovitz found him floating face-down in the sea; he's unconscious and in shock, and he inhaled some water. He was attacked by someone with a knife. His throat's not too badly damaged – it's a flesh wound – but the knife in his arm will need very careful removal."

"Never mind that, who the fuck did this?"

"Looks like our terrorists weren't as dead as we thought. One guy must have survived the crash," I ventured, and pointed to the unconscious passenger by the start of the cliff path. Both pairs of eyes turned to me; Smith's furious, Goren's intent and thoughtful. Goren quickly examined the unconscious man, quickly confirming that his lifejacket had the airline's logo on it. He was definitely a passenger, but if he'd survived, maybe Shorokogat and company had done, too.

"Right." Smith's voice was tense and coldly furious, and I shivered at the sound of it. "You two stay here with him. I'll get back up to Whitefield and bring help."

"Take her with you; she'll be safer up there. And watch out for Davenport, he's on his way down with two medics."

Smith shook his head. "Okay, but she stays here. I'm not being responsible for a civilian if I encounter the person who did this on my way up." He forestalled any further argument by sprinting away and up the path. He soon vanished into the gloom. Night was beginning to fall with a vengeance; soon it would be pitch black. We dragged Timkowski beside the unconscious passenger. We'd never get them both up the path without help. 

Goren had drawn his gun, and I deeply and sincerely wished I had one too. I had some firearms training, but neither Whitefield nor I had expected I'd need a weapon on a surveillance operation like this. He motioned for me to join him. He was sitting on a flat rock with his back protected by another rock behind it, giving him a good view over the surrounding area. It was probably as safe a position as we could find, so I dropped down beside him. This would have had its attractions, except that I was too wet, cold and scared to think about them.

I wondered if it made me a weak female to be grateful for the fact that I was currently sat next to a six-foot-four ex-soldier with a gun. Then I told myself not to be so stupid. We were stuck on an isolated beach at night in a howling storm with a murderer running around, one of us injured, an unconscious innocent passenger to protect, and our other colleague gone to get help. I should be grateful for all the help I could get, because I was so far out of my depth the fish had lights on their noses.

I shuffled a bit closer to Goren, who was… hmmm. Who was obviously trying not to be distracted by Timkowski's injuries. He was glancing around in an irregular pattern – _trying not to be predictable_, I realise – but every so often his eyes would flicker over Timkowski's injuries, as though there was something there which bothered him.

I studied them myself for as long as I could, then the nausea started and I had to look away. But there was something weird going on here.

"Can I ask a question?" 

"Uh-huh." I was getting _I'd rather you didn't _vibes here, but I had to say something to take my mind off things. It was that or start freaking out.

"If someone tried cutting his throat and realised they hadn't done it properly, why didn't they just finish the job on his throat instead of sticking the knife under his arm?"

A pause. "That is a good question." Goren handed me the gun and scrambled down beside Timkowski. "Keep watch for a few minutes." _Huh_? I knew one end of a gun from another, but I was nowhere near qualified to guard the three of us. He was already probing the edges of Timkowski's injured throat; I swiftly looked away and starting doing my best impression of someone trying to keep watch for a murderer, my eyes glancing around us, looking for movement. Goren was doing something weird. I risked a few quick glances, using peripheral vision. He was holding a pen in his hand (he must have had it in his inside jacket pocket) and making cuts in the air in front of him, striking upwards at various angles. _He's trying to duplicate the attacker's movements_, I realised.

"Uh, I don't know what I'm doing, here, and there's a killer running around somewhere," I ventured, cautiously. He ignored me, then turned, suddenly.

"No. There isn't. Or… there is, but he's not down here."

"I'm sorry?" I was beginning to feel very, very frightened, and Goren was not helping any.

"Timkowski was attacked by two people when he was out of our sight, behind those rocks," Goren said, pointing. He was almost dancing on the spot, head shifting from side to side. He was still making mock-cuts in the air in front of him. "One of them… I think one of them wasn't attacking him so much as defending themselves. They were fighting and the other person struck upwards, maybe trying to block a punch or a grab… Timkowski didn't draw his gun…" he suddenly dipped down, checked that Timkowski's gun was still in its holster, and examined his arm. I risked a downwards glance; there was a shallow cut in the fabric of his jacket sleeve.

"He was holding a knife; it caught on Timkowski's sleeve, then continued upwards – that's why that cut is at such an odd angle; you cut across if you're trying to kill, but this goes upward and it's deeper further down the cut and shallower at the top. Whoever did it pulled away from him, they weren't experienced at using a knife, they were shocked at the cut, at the blood."

"Who knocked him out?" I asked, trying to follow along.

"Hmm…" Goren tipped his head on one side. "The second attacker obviously knew what they were doing; most people wouldn't think to strike into the major blood vessels inside the arm, it's a professional's attack. Don't know without asking him, but if the first attacker pulled away from him, I don't think he stuck around to knock Timkowski out. I think he ran, then someone else took advantage of Timkowski being disorientated by the pain, stabbed him, knocked him out and dumped him in the water." 

"Nasty. So, two people? Two totally different people, if one of them ran and the other one tried to finish the job?"

"Two totally different people…" Goren's voice trailed off and his face became very serious. I felt a sudden pang of fear. Goren looked at Timkowski again. I followed his eyes to the lump on Timkowski's forehead and suddenly realised what it meant.

"Whoever knocked Timkowski out was standing in front of him, if the lump's on the front of his head, right?" I asked, hoping like hell I was wrong.

"Yes. It was someone he knew, who surprised him, who he wasn't expecting to attack him… He hasn't drawn his gun." 

We looked at each other. I could see dawning realisation in Goren's eyes. I could feel only rising sickness in myself. 

"Timkowski was attacked by someone he knew, who got close enough to knock him out without him putting up more of a fight – he's not got any other defensive injuries," Goren stated, and I finished the sentence with him. "It was one of us." And not just any one of us. Goren & I had been together the whole time when whoever attacked Timkowski had done it and Davenport and Whitefield were back up at the surveillance building.

"Smith," I said, very calmly, because if I let myself start screaming and panicking I'd never stop. We were stuck in a death-trap, and the only way back to safety had just been blocked off by the man who'd nearly killed our colleague, who was even now heading back up towards our other two colleagues, who knew nothing about any of this.

I realised with horrible clarity that although he was apparently trying to cover up the killing, the obvious thing for Smith to do after he'd killed the first attacker (Shorokogat? Shirkirov?) would be to come back and kill all four of us, myself, Goren, Timkowski and the innocent passenger. He could then say that we'd been killed by Timkowski's first attacker, thus covering himself and having prevented any possibility that we could share what we'd just worked out with anyone else. He'd have to, I realised. If Goren was right, and I was sure he was, then Smith had to kill us, because he couldn't guarantee that Timkowski hadn't told us what really happened.

I still had no idea why Smith was doing this… then an even more horrifying thought occurred to me. Davenport was on his way down the path to us with two medics, and none of them had a clue what was going on. They'd meet either Smith or the first attacker on the way.

I think we both realised that at the same time, because Goren suddenly groped inside Timkowski's jacket for the radio. As I looked around frantically, expecting Smith to appear out of the darkness at any minute, he pulled it out and tried several times to contact the surveillance building. Suddenly, Whitefield's voice squawked out of it, very quietly – Goren must have turned it down to avoid alerting Smith. The quality was atrocious, and I wondered for a nightmare second whether the battery had gone. I could just make out Whitefield's voice saying: "Goren, Timkowski, if you're listening and you can hear me, don't try to call for a few minutes. There's something wrong with the equipment, one of the components short-circuited… fzzzt…. can't pick up any calls… Davenport's on his way to you… I'm going to switch this off so I can fix it…" The radio cut out.

"Fuck." It was the only appropriate word for the situation. "Smith must have sabotaged it before he set off…"

"Can Whitefield fix it?" Goren asked me urgently.

"Yes, he knows about radio equipment and he's got the Army up there anyway, he can probably fix it quite quickly, but that's not going to do Davenport or the others any good. He'll meet Smith plus whoever the other attacker was on the way down to us."

We looked at each other again. I could see that Goren was doing some very rapid thinking, and I hated to interrupt, but I had to ask. "Who was the first attacker?"

Goren frowned, then an idea occurred to him. He looked down at Timkowski, and his expression became very intense, as if he were steeling himself to do something unpleasant.

"Hold his shoulders, and don't let him move."

I did as I was told, not without misgivings. Goren reached down, and pressed his thumb hard into a point a few inches down from Timkowski's wrist. There must be some major nerve endings there, because Timkowski's eyes opened wide, and he took a deep breath in, hissing in agony. I did my utmost to prevent him moving and knocking the knife, whilst beside him, the other passenger remained unconscious. Another life we were responsible for.

"Sorry. I need to know, who attacked you?" Timkowski was still wheezing. I forced myself to stay calm, trusting that Goren had a good reason for what he was doing. He still hadn't removed his thumb from Timkowski's arm. "Who attacked you?" he asked again. Timkowski took another deep breath…

"Don't know for sure… think I recognized him… was a kid, quite small, maybe fourteen or something… could be Shorokogat's son, maybe, thought he looked familiar…" Timkowski broke off, the pain of talking with his injured jaw obviously too great. I filled in the remainder of the story for myself. Shorokogat's son had survived the storm and presumably the sinking of his father's boat, and managed to get to shore somehow… and the first thing he sees is a US soldier. Given what his father had been involved in doing just before the storm blew up, he'd panicked and tried to run. Timkowski had tried to catch him, and from there my imagination filled in images of the two of them struggling, the kid - _Alexei_ Shorokogat, I remember suddenly - trying to defend himself, slashing Timkowski by accident, running away, Smith happening on the scene, Timkowski thinking that rescue had arrived…

"Did Smith knock you out?" Goren asked, intent now, dark eyes fiery with determination.

Timkowski managed a weak nod. "Yeah… guess he must be cleaning house…" 

Goren tipped his head on one side again, then nodded himself. "Smith's involved in Shorokogat's activities, isn't he?" 

"Yeah… that's why he tried to stop it going ahead… also told Shorokogat so you didn't pick up anything useful from surveillance… didn't expect her to get the accent…" Timkowski looked set to pass out again; Goren dug his thumb in again, just a fraction of a centimetre. Timkowski hissed again; I still felt sorry for him, but it was now tinged with a fair degree of anger. He wasn't the nice guy I'd thought he was, or maybe he was, but just took orders from Smith unquestioningly. Nevertheless, if he'd blown the whistle the four of us plus Davenport, Shorokogat's son and the two medics wouldn't now be running the risk of getting shot by Smith. 

"What's in it for him?"

"Some people in the CIA… when we knew they would both be here… wanted to speak to Shorokogat & Shirkirov privately… then dispose of them privately… couldn't risk having what they know in the open. It's not official… just a few agents… needed fast results, broke the rules to get them. Smith's up to his neck. He was Shorokogat's contact, looked the other way about… trafficking, drugs… in return for information…. S'why the two of us made sure we came on this … keep an eye on things… make sure Smith's buddies were kept informed of what was happening… you'd never have got Shorokogat on trial, he knows too much…didn't expect him to bring the kid, stupid of us... the kid knows about it, Shorokogat takes him everywhere..."

"So, Shorokogat's son is a potential embarrassment to some of the CIA… and to Smith personally, he tried killing you…"

"Yeah… I know too much. He's gone rogue, taking the opportunity to clean house…"

Goren's face went dark. "He needs to kill every potential witness to get away with it… he's gone after Shorokogat's son, but he'll come back for us." He rose to his feet and made to set off up the path. I jumped up and set off after him.

Smith had been right about one thing; wherever Goren happened to be was almost certainly the safest place for me too. The thought of staying down on the beach with Timkowski bleeding at my feet and an unconscious man beside him, waiting to see who came for us, who would survive… no, my blood turned to ice. I could not do that.

"Hey…" Timkowski wheezed from behind us. Goren stopped, turned round, and dropped to his knees beside Timkowski. He felt around inside the man's jacket, drew his gun, and placed it in Timkowski's hand. I glanced around us, looking around to see if Smith was anywhere in sight. When I looked back, Goren had risen to his feet and drawn his gun.

"We'll get help for the two of you as soon as we can, but if I don't catch Smith he'll come back and finish the job. Hang in there." Goren set off again with me dogging his footsteps. He stopped. "Maybe you should stay here too."

"I'm no match for Smith, with or without a gun, and I can't do anything for Timkowski or this guy. They need urgent medical help, and the only way they'll get that is if one of us makes it back up to the top. If Smith kills you and comes back for me, I don't stand a chance. I am not staying here; I'll hide somewhere if we find Smith and you need to be alone or whatever, or maybe run for help or something, but please don't leave me here." I was trying desperately not to think about the fact I was volunteering to run towards a killer, but if it was a choice between acting and waiting around to see what happened, I'd take action any day.

Goren looked at me with an unreadable expression, then shrugged. "You do what I say, when I say it, and don't argue." I nodded vigorously, and followed him up the path, wishing with every step that I had a gun. We scrambled up the cliff blind, not risking a flashlight. Goren moved amazingly silently for someone his size carrying a gun in one hand; I was lighter than he and didn't need to worry so much about dislodging stray rocks. We got nearly halfway up, almost to the small clearing I'd noticed earlier, then Goren froze. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and pulled me behind the large rocks I'd seen earlier. We listened cautiously to the unmistakable sounds of a struggle going on in front of us. Goren glanced cautiously round the rock, then hissed "Stay there!" at me, and hurled himself out into the clearing, yelling "Put the gun down, NOW! PUT IT DOWN!"

Very, very cautiously, I peered out from behind the rock. From somewhere out over the sea, a flash of lightning lit up the whole scene. I saw Smith in the middle of the clearing, raising his arm and taking aim at a small, cowering man… boy, I realised … in front of him. Behind Smith, lying curled and motionless on the ground, was a familiar figure with a pool of blood around his head, and further behind him, two others. My heart plummeted into my boots. As I watched, horrified, Smith swung his arm up and round, took aim at Goren and fired.


	10. Protect and Survive

**Summary**: They met less than twelve hours ago. Now their lives are in each other's hands.

**Rating**: R

It's hard to hit a moving target; Smith's shot went wide by about a foot. I flinched back as the bullet whined past me and flew out over the path into the night, then forced myself to keep watching as Goren fired in return. Smith had already dodged to one side, then, as I watched, he flung himself at Goren, swinging the gun up and across like a club. It was a crazy thing to do, but it had the advantage of surprise… plus, I realised, Smith was not only a few years younger but hadn't been hauling injured people up and down the rocky cliff path all evening. He had greater speed, if not greater strength, and to my horror, I saw his blow catch Goren across the head. He dropped to the ground, obviously stunned and in pain, but still conscious. I wished uselessly for a gun of my own… Before I could think too much about it, I stuck my head round from the rock and yelled "Smith, what the fuck are you doing?"

Smith's head whipped around towards the direction of my voice. I stuck my head out tentatively from behind the rock, so that Smith could see I was a witness if he shot anyone. Our eyes met and it was all I could do to keep from screaming, but I had to force myself to do this. The light was fading fast now, and ominous rumbles of thunder suggested that the storm was returning. Soon, it would be pitch black and raining once more.

"I could ask you the same thing," Smith shot back at me, stepping away from Goren – out of arm's reach – and training his gun on Shorokogat's son, who whimpered. "This little bastard jumped Davenport and these two guys, knocked them out like Timkowski and broke Davenport's ribs trying to stab him… he'd have killed him, too, if I hadn't intervened."

The kid looked towards me. He was fifteen, but fear, grief and confusion made him look a lot younger. He did not look like a killer, certainly not capable of knocking out three grown men. Smith, on the other hand… in the dim evening light I could only see hollows where his eyes were, but everything about him was tense, from the way he was gripping his gun to the tension of his expression…. and there were dark stains on his jacket sleeve. _Timkowski's blood_… Behind him, Goren stirred slightly, rubbing his head and wincing, but obviously not too badly harmed. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay, well, now we've caught him, why don't we all go back up to the building, see if Whitefield's back yet with the Army?" I really, really hoped I was managing to sound normal. In truth I had no plan other than to avoid getting shot until Goren revived and hope that between us we could think of something.

"Let's give it a while, see if these guys come round… sorry about Goren, he startled me… you know I didn't mean to shoot him, right?"

"Yeah, right!" I agreed brightly.

"You can come on out from behind that rock now," Smith suggested, and I could hear a faint note of strain in his voice. I kept my eyes fixed on him, but in my peripheral vision I could see Goren moving slightly, he was looking at Davenport. Was it my imagination, or had Davenport moved slightly? Maybe he wasn't dead or stunned. This was getting better.

Suddenly, Shorokogat's son yelled, a panicky yell, pointing at Smith. Smith reacted instantly, but not, as I'd expected, by raising his gun. Instead, keeping his eyes fixed on the kid, he deliberately trod very hard on Goren's wrist, bent down, and deftly removed his gun, dodging out of the way as Goren swung at him in return. Smith leapt back, cat-like, and shoved Goren's gun into his waistband. _Shit_.

"What did he say, Tovitz?" Smith asked, and his tone turned my guts to water. Any pretence that this was a normal situation that had got out of hand had just gone out of the window. I was seeing Smith the killer now, Smith the rogue CIA agent cleaning up a very messy situation. He turned towards me, not quite pointing the gun at me, not quite letting go of the pretence that this was still a normal situation.

"He said…" I tried desperately to stall. "I'm not sure…"

"Don't give me that bullshit. What did he say? Oh, and I know some Ukrainian, so don't go making anything up."

Oh shit. I was not a good enough liar to get away with this. "He said… he said he recognised you. I think he said he knows you." Shit. I'd just signed our death warrants.

"Ask him again, and come out from behind that rock." Smith glanced casually at Goren and Davenport, then at his gun. The implication was clear. I edged out slightly from behind the rock, but didn't come any closer. I could see the situation more clearly now. The two medics were out cold, but I could see no signs that Smith had shot them. Maybe he didn't want to risk killing anyone he didn't have to, too difficult to explain… they were both bigger than Davenport, so perhaps he jumped them first, then Davenport tried to defend himself…

Suddenly, something about Davenport caught my eye. He had a huge cut over his forehead, but despite the blood trickling over his face, he was looking at me intently from behind half-closed eyes. As my eyes passed over him, his hand twitched. I stared, until Smith's repeated question brought my attention back to him. Suddenly, I realised what I'd seen. _Davenport's hand had made the shape of a gun_. He was not only alive and regaining consciousness, but armed too. I couldn't tell if Goren had seen that, but suddenly a mad idea occurred to me.

"Okay, okay, I'll ask him again." I turned to face Shorokogat's son. He was snivelling now, and if I'd been less afraid for my own life, I'd have felt sorry for him, since in the last three hours he'd nearly drowned in a storm, seen his father drown, been washed ashore and then had someone try to shoot him. I watched Smith very carefully as I said in Ukrainian: "Listen to me. I can help you, okay? What did you say just now?"

He gave a half-sob and replied in a strangled voice: "I know that man. My father's had dealings with him."

Smith looked at me. I swallowed. "He thinks… he thinks he knows you…" How was I going to do this? Suddenly, the kid spoke to me again.

"I think that man… is CIA. He tried to shoot me, he's a fucking maniac!"

Smith again looked at me for the translation. Luckily, Shorokogat's son's voice was so strangled and high from stress and fear that I had a good reason for telling Smith that I needed to ask him to repeat it. I put on my calmest, most reassuring voice, and prayed very hard that Smith was bluffing about knowing Ukrainian well… well, he hadn't reacted to my telling the kid that I could help him.

"Kid, listen carefully. I'm going to say something you won't understand, but don't say anything or react, okay? No, _don't nod_! _Don't react_! That's better." I forced myself to keep my voice even, my Ukrainian accent in place and my eyes fixed on Alexei as I added, in German, "Detective, the man behind you has a gun. If we can distract Smith we might live." I couldn't risk looking at Goren as I switched back to Ukranian and told the kid: "What did you say about him trying to shoot you?"

"I was scared, trying to climb up the cliff… I heard those three coming down, I was going to hide, then suddenly he jumped out from behind a rock and hit the two of them over the head, the other one jumped away from him. They saw me… He tried to shoot me… that other man tried to stop him… he shot at him, I think maybe the bullet didn't go in, then he hit that man over the head and tried to shoot me…" Alexei Shorokogat sounded very young and very scared, and I knew exactly how he was feeling.

I looked up at Smith, and on the very edges of my peripheral vision I could see Goren's eyes widening and his head nodding very, very slightly. I tried hard to sound like it was a shock to me as I looked Smith in the eyes and said "He says that he thinks you and his father… met at some point, that you knew Shorokogat, had dealings with him…"

Smith nodded, and sighed very wearily, as if coming to a decision. "Well, that's a shame. I was hoping I wouldn't need to do this…"

"Do what?" I asked, my voice going high with panic.

"Well, you've just heard him say that, and I suspect Goren here has too… you can stop trying to fake unconsciousness, now, Detective Goren, you're a fucking bad actor… so that doesn't give me much choice. Don't worry. If you get shot in the line of duty they give you a very nice funeral, particularly if you get shot by the son of a notorious criminal whilst trying to defend a fallen colleague… tell the kid to come over here, please."

I took a deep breath.

"No, _don't_ do that," said a very familiar voice. Goren had rolled onto his hands and knees. He glanced quickly at me with a questioning look. I frantically glanced at Davenport, who nodded once. He was awake… I nodded at Goren, hoping he'd get the message: _Davenport's conscious, just distract Smith a bit longer_…

"Well, this gets more interesting by the minute." Smith commented. He almost sounded gleeful. There was a manic edge in his voice which sent chills all the way down my spine. He fixed his eyes on Goren, forgetting me. Behind them, Shorokogat's son moaned slightly.

"Why are you doing this?" Goren asked. He moved slightly to the side, then stopped as Smith trained the gun on his forehead.

"Timkowski didn't tell you? You'll just have to die wondering. Sorry about that," and incredibly, Smith almost _did_ sound apologetic. Great, we were quite possibly going to be shot by someone who was _just doing his job_. The two of them were staring at each other now, and I could almost feel the waves of enmity coming from them, two opposite poles of a magnet; Goren, defender of the law (albeit in his own strange way), Smith, who didn't believe any laws applied to him… Goren, stock-still, locked eyes with Smith, and I guessed that for the two of them, the rest of us had just ceased to exist.

"He said… you were involved with some of Shorokogat's deals. Let me guess… Shorokogat came up with some good intelligence, you got the credit and in return you looked the other way about him trafficking drugs, trafficking women, funding terrorists… except he was funding the _wrong kind_ of terrorists, wasn't he? The Russians get very pissed indeed about anyone involved in smuggling arms to Chechenya, and now that they're our allies in the war on terrorism… he was going to be a very big embarassment to you, wasn't he?"

"That's pretty much it, yes. Shorokogat outlived his usefulness and it's best that this doesn't come to light. The kid's the last witness. People need to have faith that we're doing our best to protect them, and I've worked very hard indeed to get where I am."

"Oh, it's all about you?" Goren countered. I could hear the strain in his voice, and realised that he'd need me to tell him when Davenport was ready. We'd all have to trust each other.

"The sort of work I do, it's always my judgement, nothing else," Smith shrugged. "There are no laws where I operate, that's what the world outside your precious fucking civilised New York is like. You _need_ us to make the shitty decisions, and right now, I'm making one, and you're in the fucking way."

"You're making a judgement call? Your judgement is fucked up," Goren snarled, drawing Smith's attention back to him. He was between Davenport and Smith now, obscuring the CIA man's view of Davenport, keeping his attention fixed on Goren. I could see Davenport's hand moving carefully, agonisingly slowly, towards the inside of his jacket, gripping the gun butt, drawing it out…

"I mean, I see this all the time," Goren continued, his voice almost hypnotic. "Most people who kill are stupid, they kill on the spur of the moment, no forethought involved, they just see their opportunity and take it… most of them aren't stupid enough to do it in front of witnesses though, that I _don't_ usually see…" I watched Smith stiffen, realising he'd just been insulted, that Goren had just implied that he was no better than any of the many stupid killers Goren had put away…

As Smith raised his gun, Davenport waved his gun at me, frantically. I took a deep breath and yelled in German "GOREN, GET OUT OF THE WAY!" I looked across at Shorokogat's son and yelled in Ukranian, "Alexei, RUN TO ME AND YOU'LL BE SAFE!" Behind me, an almighty crack of thunder rolled behind us, and a brilliant flash of lightning lit up the clearing. The lightning flashed again and again, and as Smith whirled round at the sound of my voice, Goren leapt up at him, the lightning highlighting his attack, like strobe lighting… he seemed to suddenly to grow in front of my eyes, exploding up into Smith's face.

Alexei dashed across the ground to me. I grabbed his wrist, yanked him behind the rock, and then sprinted out. Smith saw me, but he was too busy trying to fight off Goren to get a good aim. I dodged a kick, then grabbed Smith's gun arm, hanging on for dear life. I'd like to say I did something more useful and heroic, but really all I did was hang on to Smith's arm and hope like hell that Goren knew what he was doing. The three of us crashed onto the ground. I was still hanging on to Smith, pinning his arm down to the ground, sheer terror at the thought of what he'd do to me if he got free lending me strength. I was aware of the two of them grappling, Goren grunting as Smith's blows landed, then Smith's arm and body tensing underneath me… I guessed Goren had managed to get a good grip onto Smith, because the next thing I knew Smith was howling and yelling, spitting obscenities and trying to bite us, head whipping from side to side, until suddenly it stilled. I looked up to see Davenport crouching beside us, the barrel of his gun jammed into the soft underside of Smith's neck.

"You…fucking…move…and…I…will…fucking…shoot, you bastard," Davenport gritted out. His breathing was shallow and he was obviously in tremendous pain, but his arm was steady. "At this range… there won't be enough of your head left…to fucking identify you…".

Smith grinned, through bloody teeth. "It's going to be your word against mine…."

Amazingly, Goren laughed. I looked up to see that he was still pinning Smith to the ground. The CIA man's arm was bent at a painful angle. Part of me winced. (A darker part of me hoped Goren had broken the arm.) Goren shifted slightly, replacing one of his hands with his knee, and reaching inside his jacket. He was grinning, a very triumphant grin and as we watched, he produced the radio and turned up the volume. Whitefield's familiar voice crackled out: "We're on our way down to you now, Goren, hold him…" Goren turned it down slightly.

"It's going to be _your_ words, all of them…. They fixed the radio up there. I took Timkowski's radio with me, and Whitefield's been listening to you for the past ten minutes." Smith swore, struggled for a few more seconds, then finally gave up as Goren tightened his grip on Smith's arm and Davenport jabbed the gun barrel in deeper. Above us, further up the path, I could hear the very welcome sounds of Whitefield's voice and heavy feet tramping towards us. As I looked up through the rain which was just beginning to fall, Whitefield appeared, heading down the path towards us, accompanied by five hefty soldiers, guns drawn. He was holding a radio in his hand….

My legs suddenly went rubbery with relief, and if I hadn't already been kneeling down, I'd have fallen over. The next few minutes were chaotic, as Whitefield took Smith and Shorokogat's son into custody, arranged for two soldiers to go and retrieve Timkowski and the passenger from the beach and arranged for someone to carry Davenport and the unconscious Army medics up the path. Amid all the chaos, Goren & I ended up stood next to each other, breathing heavily and feeling an odd mixture of relief, fatigue and exhilaration. At least, I was feeling that, and I guessed he was too, to judge by his expression. We just looked at each other for a while, the shared experience bonding us.

"Next time… don't _ever_ run towards someone with a gun," he said, eventually, but so calmly that I didn't take offence. Actually, I entirely agreed.

"Next time… I'm going to _have_ a gun. You think the people we rescued are going to be okay?"

"They're being removed to the base," Whitefield interrupted our conversation. "That's where we're headed now. Go on up and I'll see you at the top." He stomped past us, yelling at the soldiers to be careful to keep hold of Smith on the way up.

We stared at the path in mutual weariness. It was newly slippery with rain, jagged edges of rock and steep climbs glinting in front of us in the weak light from the flashlights.

"I wonder if Timkowski and Davenport will be okay," I asked, trying to delay the evil moment.

"We won't know until we get back up there." We stared at the path for another minute. It didn't get less steep.

"We've got to climb back up there, haven't we?" I said eventually.

"Yes. If you're too tired… I could carry you."

Huh. "Thank you, I _can_ manage," I said, not appreciating the implication that I was a weak female. I stomped off and got five paces before I turned round and met Goren's amused gaze. "Your reverse psychology skills really are second to none, aren't they?"

A weary smile that, amazingly, evoked a warm response in me, despite my fatigue. I called forth every last scrap of energy I had, and gave him the best smile I could manage. "Race you to the top."


	11. Survival Instinct

**Summary**: It looks like being a long and uncomfortable journey back to civilisation for Bobby Goren. (Bobby's POV.)

In the back of the Jeep, Bobby Goren tugged the blanket further over himself, stared out of the window and sighed. It promised to be a much longer journey back to the army base they'd started out from twelve hours ago than the three-hour trek out there. The storm had blown up again, with steady rain and a howling wind, making crawling along the single-track road at a safe pace the only sensible option. The driver and his companion, two morose-looking men who'd probably not enjoyed the experience of being woken up and dragged out along the miserable road to the surveillance building in the middle of a howling gale to drive three sweaty, worn-out individuals in grubby army fatigues back to the base, didn't seem inclined to talk, which was probably as well given the driving conditions. It was cold, and the Jeep's heater was faulty, so they'd simply thrown a blanket over their damp fatigues and dreamed of hot showers. The Jeep hit another pothole, and Goren swore mentally. This was NOT going to be a pleasant experience.

He glanced over the other occupants of the backseat. They'd ended up having to do some frantic rearranging of the transport to accommodate Smith and Shorokogat's son being kept in custody by the Army, and to transport Davenport and the injured passenger. Since Smith and Shorokogat's son had to be put in different vehicles, he, Whitefield and Sienna Tovitz had ended up back in one of the Jeeps, with two soldiers along to navigate and drive. The weather was so bad that having two sets of eyes on the road was a sensible precaution, not to mention the fact that if the Jeep got bogged down or they got a flat, both himself and Tovitz were too exhausted to help and Whitefield wasn't much better, having been up for as long as they had and spent several hours driving up and down the road from the listening post.

Thankfully, the base had insisted on sending along some junior Army officers to oversee the rescuing of the passengers. He and Whitefield had handed over Smith to them, with strict instructions not to take their eyes off him and to treat him as extremely dangerous. They'd had no handcuffs, but the Army medical vehicles had restraints. Smith had been strapped down and two soldiers with guns would be keeping watch. They were now following behind the vehicle with Smith, and he, Whitefield and the soldiers were all armed, just in case.

Frankly, Goren sincerely doubted Smith would be in any shape for making an escape, since he'd gone the colour of wet newspaper and started screaming shortly after being taken into custody. The medics thought that Goren had broken his arm in two places, and had given Smith morphine for the pain. Between that, the guards, the restraints and the broken arm, Smith would _not_ be making an escape, and Goren would be entirely happy to put the CIA man out of his head, just as he always did when he and Eames had got a confession and handed over the perp to Carver and the rest of the machinery of justice. The whole thing was out of his hands now. He wasn't proud of having broken Smith's arm, but he wasn't ashamed of it either; he'd needed to defend himself, Sienna, Davenport and the others, and he'd done it.

Tim Whitefield, who was sat next to the other door at the opposite end of the back seat, was staring fixedly and silently out of the window. He was either asleep with his eyes open, or was mentally drafting his report on the surveillance operation. Goren did not envy him that task, since their real target had drowned. Admittedly, having saved Shorokogat's son's life might well get them some useful information to enable Interpol to go after the remnants of Shorokogat's business dealings, and they'd removed one bad apple from the CIA, hopefully others too once Smith was interrogated.

Goren almost regretted the fact that he wouldn't get to do that. Then again, it was never wise to be in charge of the interrogation if you had a personal stake in it, and he had to admit that his motivation for wanting to be the one who got to screw with Smith's head was less professional than personal. He mentally set that aside; he'd never be allowed near Smith, so it was pointless to speculate. The CIA had its own way of doing these things, and he'd just have to trust that Whitefield would see to it that the CIA man got the heaviest sentence that could be handed out.

He had no doubt that the Interpol man would do his utmost, and he trusted Whitefield, so that was another problem out of his hands.

The crashed aircraft's passengers were now the responsibility of the Army, and he'd already mentally gone over the events of the night, all of them, letting his brain process and file them away as memories the way he always did at the end of a case, refreshing his mind for the next challenge. It was a coping mechanism all cops learnt in the end, to file away memories of even the worst cases, so that they didn't float back to the surface of your mind and disturb you. For the first time ever, he was wishing that he wasn't quite so good at it, that he could keep his mind busy, distracted, for a bit longer. Guiltily, he glanced at the other occupant of the Jeep's back seat. Being the smallest, they'd put her in the middle between him and Whitefield. It had made sense at the time, but now… well, Goren thanked God that the darkness and the blanket over his lap was hiding his… problem.

Rationally, he could identify the main cause of the reason he was feeling horny and frustrated. He'd experienced it once or twice before, in the Army and later on in the NYPD, when he'd been shot at by a suspect… You were in a life-threatening situation, you survived by your own wits and courage and adrenalin, and then later you felt the urge to, well, if not actually _create_ life, then at least _affirm_ it by getting close to another human being.

And he _was_ close to another human being at that particular moment, if not in the exact sense that his body would have preferred. Sienna Tovitz was at present snoring quietly on his shoulder, damp red hair straggling across the thick cloth of his army fatigues. Her warm, relaxed body was pressing against his, her head on his shoulder, her breasts against his arm… she'd fallen asleep almost as soon as they were in the Jeep and was now slumped against him in the dead sleep of the truly exhausted. A loud snore from the other side of the Jeep indicated that she wasn't the only one. Whitefield had fallen asleep too, eyes closed and head slumped against the Jeep's window. He obviously had the old soldier's knack of being able to take sleep where he could find it.

He envied them both. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this tired. He worked out when he could, liking to keep himself healthy, physically strong, but he usually didn't risk tiring himself out too much, not being willing to jeopardise his performance whilst on the job by slowing himself down with tiredness. He was now exhausted after the events of the past eighteen hours, and wished sincerely that his body wasn't keeping him awake and that he could follow their example, simply fall asleep for the next few hours. A baser part of his mind wished he was female and could… take care… of his problem discreetly. Unfortunately, that wasn't a possibility, and Sienna's warm body against his really wasn't helping. It was oh so easy to imagine draping an arm across her shoulders, pulling her closer to him, his hands stroking her back, her legs, snuggling closer under the blanket, relaxing against her… oh, this was NOT a good train of thought, but so tempting…

Suddenly, she stirred against him, muttering incoherently, obviously in the grip of a nightmare, some recollected memory, probably their finding the dead bodies in the water. Her voice climbed higher, becoming more frantic, until her eyes sprang open. He gently tipped her head up to face him, making eye contact. Her green eyes were wide open, but she didn't focus on him… obviously, she was still in the grip of the nightmares, her brain still trying to process the horrors it had seen earlier that night. He put on his calmest, most reassuring voice, the one he used for nervous witnesses and children.

"Sienna, it's me, remember? You're having a nightmare. What you're seeing isn't real."

"Hunh?" Her voice was rough, dopey with sleep. He couldn't help wondering if she sounded like this whenever she'd just woken up.

"It's me… Goren? Bobby Goren? You're safe now." Elementary psychology, but it was what was needed.

"Safe? Okay." Her eyes half-closed. "I'm really hungry… that was a _tiny_ bar of chocolate."

He couldn't resist smiling. It was flattering to realise that she'd been impressed by the old sleight-of-hand trick he'd done almost on impulse. Exactly what had been behind that impulse, he wondered suddenly? He could have just given it to her.

"We'll get you fed properly when we get back."

"You promise."

"Sure… I promise. Whatever you like."

"Uh-huh." She smiled sleepily. Then, before he realised what was happening, she stretched up against him and kissed his cheek, warm lips pressing against his stubble. "Said I'd kiss you for that…" And with that, she was gone again, relaxing into sleep against him. He glanced around frantically, but Whitefield was still asleep, and the driver and the other soldier had their eyes firmly fixed on the road. Involuntarily, he touched his cheek. _Goren, you're NOT thinking that way about someone so much younger_… except he WAS tempted, his body responding entirely too strongly for an innocent kiss.

He sighed again and stared out of the window. He'd never considered himself especially sophisticated when it came to relationships. Hell, by the standards of some of the people he'd encountered on the job, his tastes were positively vanilla, albeit inventive and imaginative vanilla, or so he liked to think. He just liked to be with an attractive woman, ideally someone who didn't mind his quirks, his devotion to his job… someone not entirely unlike his current partner, Alexandra Eames, it occurred to him. They'd established a rapport that he'd only just begun to realise that he was coming to depend on. He valued that too much to risk it, but at the same time, he realised, he _was_ becoming attached to Eames in another sense, her unfailing ability to understand him, to act as buffer and interpreter as required, to enable him to free his mind and pursue the truth… Even now, he was mentally putting the past twelve hours' experience into words for her, seeing her sitting across from him with that wry smile in the Starbucks just down from One Police Plaza, leaning across the table, enjoying the tale he was weaving for her… The thought still didn't really distract him from his problem, the aching arousal that had flared up again at the press of Sienna's lips against his cheek. Glumly, he realised he was still avoiding his _other_ problem….

No, he'd never considered himself particularly sophisticated… but he'd been around the block often enough to understand why he was responding like this. An attractive woman approaching you in a bar, at a party… that was one thing, and not something he'd ever been one to turn down, if he liked what was on offer. But an attractive woman who you knew you shouldn't touch, one who was so obviously attracted to you…

She'd done her best to hide it, but Bobby Goren did not need to exercise his detective skills much to pick up the way she kept looking at him. Well, that and the fact she'd obviously meant her comment about kissing him quite sincerely, and if he dwelled on that thought he'd only be making his problem a LOT worse. Someone who combined endearing youth and inexperience with intelligence and bravery… yes, THAT was a tempting combination, made all the more tempting by her physical attractiveness. It was very easy to picture those beautiful green eyes looking up at him, or maybe looking _down_ at him, those curves out of the army fatigues she'd been sporting for the past day… easy, but not conducive to his comfort on this interminable journey.

He could see in her some of the same steel and intelligence that made Eames so formidable – still raw and unrefined, but just beginning to emerge. He could see her going to the top of her field, much as he was at the top of his, perhaps… and it was _so_ very tempting, whilst she was still at this endearing stage of mixed inexperience, energy and determination, to respond to her unspoken offer, to smile at her, look into her eyes in that way that women always seemed to like, to see if she'd let him fully explore that warm, wonderful body that was currently asleep against his, to imagine how she might respond to his kisses, his hands, his mouth, his body….

… Tempting, but not wise. She might be casting glances at him out of the corner of her eyes, she might be flirting just ever-so-slightly (her warm body might be trustingly relaxed against his in a way that inspired decidedly improper thoughts) but he could not risk his career on such small signs. His instincts, both male and professional, shouted out that not only would she not be offended by his making a move, she'd _welcome_ it, but his judgment, equally well developed, warned him that this was not a risk he wanted to take if he didn't want to risk losing his career on the wrong end of an accusation of sexual harassment. He sighed yet again, and closed his eyes. Perhaps if he managed to sleep, he might wake to find his problem had gone. Assuming his dreams let him rest.


	12. Beer and Being Alive

"Wake up. We're here."

"Hunh?" My eyes popped open and I stared around wildly. The last thing I remembered, I'd been clambering into the back of a Jeep, ready to be taken back to the army base we'd started out, and, hopefully, a long, hot shower. The next I knew, a familiar voice was talking to me and a large hand was gently shaking my shoulder. I was vaguely aware that I was warm, dry and resting on something very comfortable, and I didn't particularly want to move anywhere.

"Sienna – we're back at the base." I turned my head, and met Goren's eyes. They were amused, smiling at me… and very, very near to me, I realised suddenly. So near, there was only one explanation. Oops.

"Did I sleep all the way here?" I asked, removing my head from his shoulder with speed. Whoops!

He grinned. "Yes – the whole way here."

He was being remarkably polite about the fact that I'd just drooled all over his jacket. "What time is it?"

"Nearly eight in the morning," he replied. "It took us a long time to get back… the road flooded and we had to wait a while to get through. Feeling better?"

I rubbed my eyes. "Honestly? No, I had nightmares the whole way."

"Yes, I know…" His voice trailed off. "Come on, we need to get in there – Whitefield and the Army need to speak to us about the last 24 hours."

I took his hand and let him pull me out of the Jeep. "You think there's any chance of a shower?"

From nearby, Whitefield replied "Yes, so long as you're quick. These guys here will show you where you can go," he indicated two nearby Army officers. "We're still under cover, so they'll find you some fresh fatigues."

Goren rubbed his face as we followed behind the two officers to a small building I guessed was some sort of guest accommodation for visitors to the base. "You know, if you put me in a room with a bed and a shower I might not come out… send someone to get me if I'm not out in half an hour."

Yes, and if you put me in a room with _him_ and a bed and a shower I could guarantee I wouldn't be coming out any time soon. And apparently my crush on Goren could survive even exhaustion and life or death situations.

Half an hour later, we were hanging around inside a meeting room in one of the Army's offices, waiting for some of the Army personnel to get here. I felt better for the shower. Goren had made an attempt at shaving, but I guessed he was one of those men who always look as though they forgot to shave, regardless of what time of day it is. Suddenly, Davenport bounced up to us, looking remarkably fit and well for someone who'd been covered in blood the last time I'd seen him. He had a long row of stitches over his left eye, but seemed otherwise well.

"You look disgustingly cheerful for someone facing a five-hour meeting," I said by way of greeting.

"Yeah, well, I'm on drugs." He grinned. "They think Smith might have cracked a rib or two, but they're not sure and there's nothing showing up on X-rays, so they gave me something for the pain, and here I am… I never actually passed out, so I'm not concussed. Oh, and I would bet you this isn't going to be a five-hour meeting job. Between the surveillance op, the crash, Smith going rogue and us needing to keep all this under cover, I think we're going to be here all day."

Oh God. "You really think so?"

"Yes," Goren and Davenport chorused in unison. Just then the door opened, and we trooped in.

I shall pass over the details of most of that day. Suffice it to say that we spent it stuck inside a small room with Whitefield, the Army and two very senior CIA men who'd hastily flown in to oversee putting Smith into custody. By the time Whitefield and I had started drafting our report for Interpol, we'd gone over everything that had happened, given preliminary evidence to the CIA, got our stories straight with the Army and covered every last aspect of the last 24 hours, I was fit for doing nothing except staring blankly into space, and Goren wasn't much better. During the course of the meeting, we did learn that Timkowski, Mrs Desai and the injured passengers were going to be fine, although Timkowski was going to be questioned as soon as he was well enough, and that Smith would stand trial on charges that were still being put together, but that would quite probably include treason and attempted murder. Those were the meeting's only high points.

Fortunately whatever drugs Davenport was on had the side-effect of making him slightly hyper; either that, or the tea he seemed to be drinking by the gallon. We let him do most of the talking as much as we could, whilst we drank coffee, ate tasteless sandwiches and I wondered vaguely whether Goren was wearing anything under his fatigues. He'd left his jacket collar temptingly open, and I could see bare skin underneath. Maybe he'd not brought a spare T-shirt? I knew I should have been trying to focus, and I was trying to, but I had simply reached the end of my stamina. I needed fresh air, company and food, and a chance to reconnect with the real world. That, and finding out whether Goren was naked from the waist up under that jacket. Or maybe from the waist down, or maybe both, he could be completely naked under there and_ there _was a thought… a thought that I should try not to dwell on. At least until I was out of the meeting. Then my subconscious reminded me of our first rescue mission down to the beach and that, actually, I _did_ know what he looked like out of his jacket. Flat belly, broad shoulders, deep chest, strong arms, fine dark hair running in a line down from his chest to… well, that was it for my concentration for pretty much the whole of the meeting. 

As the afternoon light began to fade, we finally staggered out into the welcome fresh air of a pleasant summer evening. Whitefield joined us. "Well… thank you, everyone. It's been good to work with the two of you, and with you too, Sienna, well done. I may well see you again – it depends how the CIA decide to handle this. They tend to do these things quickly; they may want to see us all again in a few days to take more evidence for whatever they decide to charge Smith with."

He shook hands with Goren & Davenport. "I've checked with the Army and we're all going to be staying here overnight – the roads a few miles from here are still flooded, but we should be able to leave tomorrow. The Army will put us up in the same building you saw earlier. Anyway, good working with you, and remember we're officially not here. If you can bear that in mind, you can go off and find something to do, there's a small town a mile down the road which I'm told is where most of the off-duty soldiers hang out… See you later, Tovitz."

"See you later." As Whitefield walked away, I looked at the two of them. I hoped my eyes weren't as red-rimmed as theirs, but I suspected they probably were. Davenport took a deep breath, winced, shook his head and straightened up. "Come on. I found out from one of the officers that there's a bus leaving in ten minutes for soldiers on leave wanting to go into town, hit the nearest bar and get drunk. I intend to be on it. Let's all go, I managed to get temporary passes in and out of the base for all three of us."

"I'm not sure… I think I'll just go back to my room and sleep." I stared at the floor, until a pair of dark brown eyes interrupted my line of sight. I tilted my head up, and made eye contact with Goren, who'd somehow managed to bend down far enough to catch my attention. He looked… was I flattering myself to think, _concerned_? Probably not. The three of us had been through a lot together, after all. "I think you should come with us," he murmured.

"_You're_ going?"

"Yes. It's not a such bad idea to try to reconnect with the rest of the world… just be among normal people, doing normal things. It'll help with the nightmares."

"Yeah… even if that DOES mean being stuck in a bar with fifty drunk squaddies." Andrew chimed in. I sighed, and gave way to the inevitable. "Does that mean the two of you are buying?"

Half an hour later, we got off the bus and into a large bar. We'd eventually just staggered onto the bus as we were, all of us agreeing that if we went back to our rooms and changed, we'd probably end up going to sleep. Plus none of us had brought any casual clothes. We drew some attention in our fatigues, but the place was so big it looked as though no-one was paying much attention and in any case they were obviously used to having off-duty soldiers around. We stopped just in the doorway to get our bearings. It was already so loud that we were having to shout.

"Right, mine's a double whisky, whatever they've got, plus whatever variation on burger and chips they've got," Davenport said cheerfully to Goren, fishing in his pockets.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're the only one with any chance of getting to the bar. She's tiny, and if one more person jolts my ribs, I won't be held responsible for what I'll do to them."

"I'm still here, thank you. Mine's a cheeseburger, by the way. And should you be drinking with the pills they gave you?"

"Good point. Better make it Bud."

Goren stared at both of us, then, refusing the proffered bills, departed, shoving his way slowly through the crowd, shaking his head. I was staring after his rear view when Davenport tapped my arm. "I'm off to the toilet." Two off-duty soldiers almost immediately knocked into him. "I may be gone for some time." He limped off, clutching his ribs. I decided I really didn't want to be hit on by drunken soldiers, or even sober ones for that matter. When this was over I never wanted to see another set of army fatigues again. I decided to take the 'camouflage' approach to avoiding bar sharks, and attached myself to a large group of about fifteen women who were all chatting and laughing, propped against the bar whilst two of them tried to get served. One of them tried the traditional catch-the-barman's-eye-and-bend-forwards-in-a-low-cut-top manoeuvre. It worked; he headed on over there with a focussed expression.

"Excuse me, do you live here?"

"I'm sorry?" I turned to face the speaker, a smiling brunette of about twenty-five.

"Do you live here? Oh, silly question, you must do, unless you're in fancy dress." She smiled again. I remembered suddenly that I was still supposed to be under cover. 

"Uhhh… yes, I do. You?"

"Oh, we got lost on the roads earlier, then we found the road we should have taken was blocked by the rain... we're going to stay over here tonight. You want to join us whilst your friend gets the drinks?"

"Yes, why not." I merged into the group, hoping that Goren would be able to see me over the heads of the other drinkers. They were an odd bunch, all different ages from nineteen up to several women in their fifties, but very cheerful. I didn't quite catch why they were all travelling together, something about a shared hobby and them meeting up to swap notes once a year… Suddenly, the youngest one was looking at me with a questioning expression. "Hey, did you hear anything about that plane crash on the coast earlier today?" A chorus of _yeahs_, and interested expressions turning my way. "They're saying a bunch of soldiers were out there and helped get them out… otherwise, they'd all have drowned, if you believe the rumours."

"Uh… Yeah, yeah, I heard about that." Oh shit. I did not want to talk about this. I looked over my questioner's shoulder, and managed to make eye contact with Goren, who was turning away from the bar, beers clutched in his hands. I sent a message with my expression; _Help! Rescue me! _He nodded and began plowing his way through the crowds. A pointed "Hmm?" brought me back to my new friends.

"Yeah, do you know anything about it? Do you know any of the guys who were involved?" They were crowding round now, concerned, interested faces all peering at me. Did I know anything about it? Any minute now I was going to either start crying or start telling them about what it was like to pull a dead body out of the sea. Either would be seriously unprofessional, plus if I started crying I might not stop. Suddenly, a heavy arm dropped over my shoulder. And it was holding a Bud. Goren had evidently read my mind. Bless the man.

"Here's your drink… Andrew's got the food."

"Thanks... Bobby," I replied, playing along as he steered me away from the group and towards Davenport, who was shoving a burger into his mouth. Behind me, a voice called "Hey, what happened to your friend?"

Goren threw a smile over his shoulder and pulled me after him. "He tripped over a step." We rejoined Davenport and for a few minutes, none of us said anything, being too busy refuelling, although Davenport did raise an eyebrow at Goren's arm around my shoulders. I glowered at him, bit savagely into the burger and hoped uncharitably that his ribs hurt him all the way back to England. I then looked at my burger and sighed.

"What's wrong?" Davenport asked in a rather muffled voice.

"It just seems kinda weird to be doing normal stuff when Timkowski's in hospital, Smith's in jail and five people died in that crash plus everyone on Shorokogat's boat apart from his son."

"Well, you not eating and being sad won't change any of those things," Davenport pointed out, and slugged back half of his beer. I glared at him, then suddenly felt deflated. Goren put a gentle hand on my arm. "You feel bad?"

"Actually… no, to be honest." I sighed. "I feel bad that I don't feel _more_ bad…"

"Sounds like you've got survivors' guilt. Listen, Davenport's right. We did what we could, and now we move on. If you're going to stay in this kind of work you need to be able to do that without feeling guilty about it."

Davenport nodded, and swallowed hastily. "Why, are you thinking of getting out of the translation game, moving on up?" He met my gaze, wide-eyed, and said in a tone of mock sincerity "You DO know that not all surveillance ops work out that way?" I wondered if we should be talking about this, but the bar was so loud that I doubted anyone would overhear. I smiled and nodded. "And we haven't managed to put you off? And by the way, my name is Andrew, I hate my surname."

I chuckled, and munched a fry. Beside me, Goren had finished his food and was fastidiously cleaning mustard off his fingers, reminding me irresistibly of a large black cat grooming its whiskers. He still hadn't taken his jacket off, and it was warm in here. Oh, my noticing that had _not _helped my problem. I was feeling decidedly, well, horny. Survivor's reflex, maybe, or possibly just being sat next to Goren and having evil thoughts about what he might not be wearing.

"No, you haven't put me off… this is going to make me sound like a thrill-junkie, but…"

"You enjoyed it?" Andrew grinned and slapped my shoulder. "Welcome to the intelligence game, sweetheart. Did I just call you that?"

"Yes, and you shouldn't be mixing pills and beer."

"You have a point. Oh well, too late." He lifted the bottle to finish it, and paused, regarding the two of us. "So, Sienna's getting out of translation and going on to better and higher things, she'll probably have Whitefield's job in a few years, I bet… I'm going back to England to hunt for Shorokogat's successor and put him out of business, unless they decide they want me to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in which case I'm quitting and opening a bar in Australia. How about you, Goren?"

Goren shrugged, and smiled. "I already get paid to do what I do best, and I_ am _the best." Anyone else would have sounded pretty arrogant saying that, but we both understood him. Andrew raised his bottle, and the two of us raised ours. "Here's to us, then – cheers."

"Nastrowje."

"_Prost _".

We drained the bottles. I felt a lot better, although the whole having-lustful-thoughts-about-Bobby-Goren thing was still hanging around. Maybe I should just go back to the base and rest. I had a book or two with me, plus I could probably sleep for the next twelve hours if I put my mind to it. "Okay, see you guys, I'm heading back."

"Ah. That might be a problem, the next bus doesn't leave for an hour," Andrew replied, looking sheepish.

"You didn't tell me that."

"You didn't ask".

"I'll walk you back if you like," Goren offered. His face was unreadable. 

"Really?"

"Yes. It's not that far and the fresh air might be good for us."

"Okay, let's go." I gathered up my jacket from the chair, leaving Andrew sat finishing off his fries. He looked at me with the most knowing expression I'd ever seen, and glanced at Goren, then back at me. I gave him my sweetest smile in reply, and mentally added a postcript to my earlier wish. I hoped his ribs hurt him all the way back to England, _and_ that he got the hangover from hell from mixing pills and beer. 

Twenty minutes later, Goren and I were back at the base. We'd walked along mostly in pleasant, companionable silence, though he'd told me some amusing stories about his experiences with the NYPD, and I'd contributed with some of my experiences on my travels. Every so often, one of us would look at the other thoughtfully. I had no idea what was going on there, but I was only too aware of the effect he was having on me. I kept mentally thinking about his eyes, his hands, the strength in that body… I was flashing back to yesterday's rescue and having his arms wrapped around me… and as we neared the small buildings where we were supposed to be staying, I reached a decision. I _was_ going to kiss him goodnight, and we'd see how he reacted to that, and then at least, even if I made a complete idiot of myself, I wouldn't go away wondering what might have happened. Luckily, this part of the base seemed to be almost deserted, they obviously didn't use it very much.

We wandered along the path back to the building. Suddenly, I nearly tripped over my shoelace, and had to stop. I bent down to tie it, and when I stood up, I was suddenly very aware that Goren was standing right next to me, way inside my personal space, looking at me with that same thoughtful expression I'd seen on his face earlier. What _was _he thinking? I took a deep breath. My mouth suddenly seemed to have gone dry, but I managed to get out: "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." He smiled, and my heart suddenly beat faster. Then, something cold trickled down my face.

"Do you think that building over there is open?" I asked suddenly. He looked puzzled for a minute, then realised why I'd asked as the sky opened. We sprinted across to the small building I'd noticed earlier, a tiny warehouse just a few minutes away from the residential block we'd been heading towards. Goren threw his weight against the door, and to our mutual surprise, it opened. We fell in and slammed the door behind us, dripping water and listening to the rain hammer down outside. I felt around for a lightswitch. A dim bulb glimmered into light, revealing it to be a very old and very dusty storehouse. Filled with crates of Army fatigues in plastic wrapping. I couldn't seem to escape the wretched things. Occasional shafts of moonlight drifted down through the windows at the top of the building, as the clouds raced by.

I turned to look at Goren. "I don't know about you, but all I seem to have done for the past day or so is get wet."

For a very brief second, a smirk crossed his face, making him look a lot younger, and, I had to admit, turning me on incredibly, although I blushed as I realised I could have phrased that a lot better. He looked me in the eye, still smiling.

"So… what was the question you were going to ask me?" He stepped closer to me, very slowly, but we were nearly in touching distance now…

I tipped my head up and met his eyes. Deep breath, and be honest. "I was going to ask whether you're wearing a T-shirt underneath those fatigues".

"Now… why exactly do you want to know that?" He tipped his head on one side, smiling now but not coming closer.

_He needs me to put it into words, no misunderstandings_, I realised. "I'm asking because I've been wondering that for the past day and I want to find out firsthand. I want to kiss you, I want to just be near another human being…."

Our eyes met and neither of us broke contact. I could see my thoughts reflected in his eyes, those wonderful, sleepy dark eyes… I could see him balancing up all the reasons why this was maybe not such a great idea – the age gap, the fact that we'd been working together, the fact that we lived on different _continents_ half the time and both had demanding careers – versus all the other reasons, the fact that we'd both gone through an incredibly intense experience, that we had worked together to save so many people, including ourselves, that I'd been aware of him, his physical presence, for the past day to the extent that I could barely think of anything else right now, that he obviously felt the same way (else why would he be staring at me like that?), that we were both just slightly drunk and tired and at the same time high on adrenaline and the sheer fact of being alive and healthy, that I was female and he was male and we both wanted each other so badly right now… I could see the balance sliding, tipping just slightly, then going, sliding irreversibly towards one conclusion…

... The next thing I knew, two huge hands were around my waist, and I was being picked up as if I weighed nothing. He covered the space between us in a matter of seconds, rushing towards me, his hands around my waist, his mouth on mine. We staggered backwards; he'd picked me up, then set me down on a stack of boxes so that my mouth was level with his, his tongue darting rapidly over my lips until I opened my mouth and let him in, my arms twining around his neck. Those warm, skilful hands made their way up my body from my waist, burrowing into my hair, holding my face steady against his mouth. He tasted of Budweiser and smoke, warmth, life, maleness… he burrowed against my mouth like a starving man. I pressed against him, revelling in the feel of those muscular arms wrapping around me, of being trapped between his warm solid body and the wall behind me.

I felt as though if you could see nerve-endings, mine would be firing all the way along my body in a blaze of blue-white light, at every point where we touched, up from my belly, across my body and within my mouth, where his tongue was exploring so thoroughly, I was dizzy from the mixed sensations of his taste, his scent, the warmth of him against me. I'd been thinking about this for what seemed like forever, and now it was happening it was almost too much, my senses overloaded. I wrapped my legs fiercely around his waist, pulling him against me. He groaned deeply, and I suddenly had the impression that he'd been thinking about this too, that he'd been wanting this too, but hadn't felt he could risk asking…

I pulled back (reluctantly) from his kiss, and looked him in the eyes. I then had to focus sharply on what I wanted to say, it was so tempting just to give in and press my mouth against his lips, taking what was on offer… but what I was going to say next needed to be said. "Just so that you know… I DO want this, I want to go to bed with you, I want you so badly I'd have jumped you in the back of that Jeep if we hadn't had witnesses… and whilst we're being practical, I have a clean bill of health and I'm on the Pill."

Goren – Bobby? suddenly grinned, his whole face lighting up. "Me… me too." A pause. "About the clean bill of health, I mean."

I decided to tease him just a little. "Oh…. Just about the clean bill of health? Not about the whole going to bed thing?"

He grinned again, suddenly, wickedly, and I felt myself melt, warming under his touch, the gaze of those wonderful dark eyes. He leant in, deliberately pressing himself against me, undoing a few buttons on his jacket, revealing warm smooth skin, broad planes of muscle underneath those fatigues, answering my earlier question without words (oh, this was better than words…). His mouth pressed against my ear as those hands caressed my back, tugging at my jacket, making contact with my back, making me gasp…. He leant in and whispered hoarsely into my ear; "Oh, we're not going to get as FAR as the bed…"

Oh my…


	13. Army Fatigues, Again

**Author's Note**: The astute among you will spot that there's a missing scene here. You can find it on Freedom of Speech FanFiction (link can be found in my personal details here on not published here, for obvious reasons.

I drifted slowly back to consciousness, or at least to being aware of my surroundings. I was sprawled on top of a large pile of boxes covered in plastic-wrapped Army fatigues, in a storehouse filled with boxes with rain hammering on the roof. Actually that's not quite true. My lower half was sprawled on top of the uniforms, which made quite an acceptable mattress. The rest of me was sprawled on top of a man I'd met for the first time less than 24 hours ago, whose fatigues jacket I was currently wearing as a makeshift blanket. It swamped me completely, which was just as well; I wasn't wearing anything else and nor was he.

In the dim light from the windows at the top of the building, I could see that Bobby was grinning more widely than a Cheshire cat. I probably was too. I was vaguely aware that I'd just done what I'd always until now thought of as the 'guy thing' of collapsing on top of your partner in a boneless heap. How embarrassing. Still, he didn't seem to mind too much. He was stroking my back, very gently. I was purring softly and trying to think of something to say. "That was wonderful," was accurate but didn't quite capture it. "Any chance I could kidnap you and make you my personal slave?" was also accurate but unlikely to get a good answer.

What I actually said was; "Well, I didn't know I could scream that loudly."

"Mm-hmmm." A large hand made its way up my back and brushed some of my hair off my forehead. I held up my own hand and pressed my palm against his, then giggled at the size difference. My hand looked like a child's compared to his.

"What's funny?" I looked down into those dark eyes, shining up at me, that little-boy grin, and my heart squeezed. _Oh dammit, Sienna, don't go falling for him, now_, I warned myself, not without a certain regret. The age and experience gap between us was really too big for this to work once we returned to our usual lives, but it was so tempting to imagine doing this whenever I was in the States, maybe we could manage it now and then, when I had to travel there for work. Tempting, but maybe not wise. Better to enjoy what we had right here and now, perhaps…

"I'm _tiny_ compared to you." I looked down his body, all six foot four of it, muscles limned in the dim light from the bulb at the back of the storehouse. "You're a real two day amusement park ride."

He burst out laughing, so infectiously that I joined in as he pulled me closer. I nestled into those big arms, trying not to think about the necessity of finding our clothes and making our way back to our rooms. (Rooms? No. _Room_. I did not intend to get any sleep that night and if I had my way, he wouldn't either).

"I've never been called that before," he got out, in between bursts of laughter.

"I have a way with… words," I replied, in my best double-innuendo tone. I was fascinated by the dark hair on his chest, my fingers slowly tracing it.

"I don't think we have two days… sadly." A thought seemed to occur to him. "Do you have to go straight back to… where is it you live? Ukraine?"

"Yeah… I have to go back there tomorrow, but it looks like I could be coming back in a few days if Whitefield's right about how the CIA handle this. Why? Are you offering to show me New York?"

"Would you like to see it?"

I smiled lazily. "Something tells me I might not see much more than the inside of your apartment."

"It's a very nice apartment."

"Persuade me," I dipped my head down, pressing my lips very softly against his. One big arm snaked around the back of my head whilst the other pulled me back on top of him. I was still tracing patterns across his chest; I was just thinking about tracing the line of dark hair down, across his chest, across his belly, when I noticed that he'd suddenly frozen still, then tipped his head on one side, concentrating. I stopped talking. I could hear now what he'd heard. Someone was shouting outside.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yeah, sounded like someone screaming," a familiar-sounding voice replied. "I'll check in here…"

Our eyes met. In a rare display of telepathy, we both jumped apart and rolled for the cover of the packing crates. As I hit the deck behind the crates, I just had time to remember that our pants and boots were strewn across the floor between the wall and the crates we were crouching behind, when the door was shoved open, the box Bobby had pushed against it scraping across the ground, and someone's head poked inside, following by a flashlight sweeping the floor. As the flashlight swivelled away, I pushed myself up a little and tried to retrieve Bobby's jacket from the top of the crates. Big mistake; the motion caught the intruder's eye, and the flashlight swivelled back, catching me square in the face. The intruder chuckled and turned the flashlight away. He turned swiftly and yelled out the door "There's nothing here!" I recognised the voice; it was Andrew Davenport.

Whoever he was shouting to – one of the base's soldiers, I guessed – yelled back "That door should be locked! I'll go get the key."

"You do that. I'll stay here 'til you get back," Andrew replied. I risked another glance. He was standing outside the door, holding the flashlight out to me. I scuttled forwards, hunting desperately for my clothes. Behind me, I could hear Bobby's large frame padding around the crates, obviously doing the same thing. I got dressed, scurried outside and, to my extreme annoyance, noticed that Andrew's shoulders were shaking.

"I'm glad you find this so funny," I replied, in a vain attempt to hang on to what remained of my dignity - not easy to preserve when you've just been scampering around a chilly storehouse nekkid. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Got bored with hanging around in the bar, got the bus, was headed past here and heard screaming…" (I blushed) "And oh, there are SO MANY jokes I could make right now about inter-agency liaisons," Andrew replied, still attempting to suppress his laughter.

"You can turn round now, I've got my clothes on."

"Sweetheart – it's not YOU I'm trying not to stare at." Behind me, Bobby froze. Then, calmly, turned his back and continued pulling on his fatigues. When we were both dressed, Andrew squinted out of the door and nodded. "It's okay, the coast is clear." We slipped out into the night, giving the impression that we'd just met Andrew whilst he was watching the door. He was still laughing.

"Well, you know my secret, I know yours." He shrugged. "I won't be coming back, regardless of what they decide to do with Smith. Odds are, we'll not meet again."

Bobby finished doing up his jacket. "Ah, your government doesn't want you exposed…" There was a brief pause, and then we all three started laughing. Eventually Andrew choked out: "Don't make me laugh, my ribs are still sore… anyway, best of luck for the future." He turned and padded away into the drizzly evening. We stared after him for a minute, then Bobby bent down and murmured into my ear. "So…. Fancy another ride?"

"I need to shower first." I tipped my head up, and grinned. "Want to help me scrub my back?"


End file.
